Tuesday COVID Update: Record 375 New Cases; Goal for 120K Tests and All Nursing Homes in June

Dr. Romero

Here are some Key Notes, Statistics, and Video for Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson’s news update on the COVID-19 pandemic, along with updates and guidance from Dr. Nate Smith, Secretary of Health and Dr. Jose Romero, who will serve as Interim Secretary of Health when Smith leaves.

According to the Governor, in May, the Arkansas economy was up by $80 million over the revised forecast, year-to-date, and it was up by $287 million over the revised forecast. May was 3.4% below last year in state revenue.

“It means we lowered the revenue forecast and we’re exceeding that projection. This is really extraordinary compared to what the projections were. I’m delighted with the individual income tax collections, with the fact that people are going back to work. The sales tax collection shows that people are gaining confidence in our economy again.”

The Governor stated that he was observing the protests on Monday night. “While it was a peaceful protest that I appreciate and value – up until about 10 o’clock – there were those that turned violent and there were those that turned to destruction of property and the Arkansas State Police last night arrested five. And those were five Arkansas residents.”

Hutchinson said law enforcement will be out again this evening and will arrest those taking part in destruction of property or violent activities.

He also noted that there was a protest in Bentonville with a large crowd of people. He displayed a photo as an example of remembering safety measures, because although there were a lot of people close together, most all of them were wearing masks.

Switching gears, the governor said it is his goal for the state to test every nursing home resident and staff member in the state in June for COVID-19. That will be about 50,000 tests. In addition to that, the state has a goal of testing 120,000 residents in the month of June.

The governor also presented several charts as usual to show the progress of Novel Coronavirus in Arkansas.

: Daily New Cases

: 7-Day Rolling Average

: Daily Hospitalizations

: Daily Test Positivity Rate

Dr. Romero spoke about the COVID-19 Latinx Stakeholders Group formed by the state in May. It is comprised of 28 members representing different organizations in Arkansas.

He said, “Our primary goal is to communicate the importance, the significance of COVID-19 and to the Latinx community in Spanish to make them more aware of the situation in our state.”

Romero said the group discussed testing in hot spot areas, and are developing current informational videos and texts in Spanish to transmit the importance of testing and the importance of protective personal measures against COVID-19.

Dr. Smith listed the current statistics for COVID-19 patients below:

7818 total cases, up 375
- This is a record high for Community cases
- 1 in corrections
- 374 in community
132 hospitalized, up 11
136 deaths, up 3
3807 tests yesterday
- 4.4% positivity rate
2115 active cases
- 73 in nursing
- 53 in corrections
- 1989 in community
31 on ventilator, up 5
5567 recovered, up 166
Counties with most new cases
- 65 Benton County
- 63 Pulaski County
- 29 Jacksonville, almost all from a single nursing home
- 57 Washington County
- 33 Sevier County
- 21 Craighead County
- 14 Yell County
- 10 Crittenden County
Regional progress
- NW & SW sections of state on upward trend
- NE & SE sections of state in downward trend
- Central section had a one-day spike due to the nursing home.