By Ray King
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday that a recent report from the White House on COVID-19 placed the state in the red in terms of the number of active cases but yellow in the positivity rate as a result of testing.
“We’ve got to work on getting the number of active cases down,” he said.
In his weekly press conference, the Governor said there were 482 new cases in the pas 24 hours, bringing the state’s cumulative total since mid-March to 80,003. Of the new cases, 476 were in communities and six in correctional facilities.
Hospitalizations declined by six to 490 and there were 21 additional deaths, bringing the state total to 1,204, Nine of the deaths were in nursing homes.
State Health Officer Dr. Jose Romero said four counties reported 20 or more new cases with Washington County leading the list with 65. Pulaski County had 47 cases, followed by Sebastian County with 33 and Benton with 21.
Romero said 72,265 people are listed as recovered.
Hutchinson said a part of the state’s winter strategy was to test over 1 million people and that has been accomplished and the plan now is to try and test 6-percent of the population each month.
