July 14, 2020 2:20 p.m. — In today's COVID-19 briefing, Gov. Asa Hutchinson reported the state has 29,733 positive cases, an increase of 794 from yesterday. Of those, 33 are in correctional facilities. Hospitalizations increased 6 for a total of 445. Arkansas has 331 deaths related to the coronavirus, an increase of 8. In the last 24 hours, 6,563 tests have been conducted. A total of 75,445 tests have been conducted this month. Gov. Hutchinson has set a goal of completeing 200,000 tests in July.
Health Secretary Dr. Nate Smith reported the state has 6,558 active cases. Of those, 130 are in nursing homes, 971 are in correctional facilities and 5,457 are in the community. The counties with the most new cases are Pulaski County with 111, Washington County with 68, Sebastian County with 52, Pope County with 41, Johnson County with 37, Benton County with 36, Craighead County with 29, and Faulkner County with 24. Dr. Smith said 738 more people have recovered bringing the state's total to 22,844 Arkansans recovered.
Dr. Smith said the state's public health lab completed a record 1,832 tests yesterday. For context, that's more than all of the tests processed during the entire month of March. Dr. Smith said plans are underway to double the capacity at the public health lab. Gov. Hutchinson is supporting the move as an effort to have more control over testing turnaround times as commercial labs are struggling with a backlog of cases due to surges in cases across the country.
Stephanie Williams with ADH said a second contact tracing vendor has been selecting and pending approval, Arkansas Foundation for Medical Care is expected to start July 20 and add an additional 350 contact tracers. The first vendor, General Dynamics Information Technology, is in the process of hiring staff and have initiated contact tracing activities. As of last Thursday, they reported having 83 staff hired and about another 1,200 applicants.
You can watch the entire daily briefing here.
0000017d-2122-dd26-adfd-e56710ac0000IMPORTANT RESOURCESArkansas Department of Health's COVID-19 Update PageADH Coronavirus Hotline: 1-800-803-7847 (8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. M-F) After normal business hours, urgent calls needing immediate response call 501-661-2136Gov. Asa Hutchinson's statewide mask mandate goes into effect July 20
