COVID-19 cases top 85,000, record set for testing

The Arkansas Department of Health on Friday (Oct. 2) reported 778 confirmed new known COVID-19 cases. The case count was up 958 when included results from antigen tests, which pushed cumulative cases to 85,779.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said in a statement that accompanied Friday’s report that the state set a testing record in the previous 24 hours and has received more testing equipment.

“We’ve received our first shipment of over 59,000 of the Abbott BinaxNOW rapid tests from the federal government. Today was another record breaking day of testing. This is welcome news as we continue to increase our testing efforts. This weekend, let’s all do our part to protect ourselves and others,” Gov. Hutchinson said in a statement.

Arkansas is expected to receive 900,000 of the test supplies from the federal government, which purchased 150 million of the kits.

COVID REPORT – Oct. 2
New known COVID-19 cases, active cases, tests
• 82,309 known cumulative cases, with 717 new community cases and 61 cases in correctional facilities
• 3,470 “probable” cases, up from 3,290 on Thursday
• There are 6,583 active cases, up from 6,552 on Thursday
• There were 12,316 test results provided in the previous 24 hours.
• There were 757 antigen tests in the previous 24 hours with 110 positives.

Deaths
• 1,245, up 7
• 146 “probable” COVID-related deaths, unchanged

Hospitalizations
475, down 10

Ventilators
89, down 3

Recovered cases
74,473

The top five counties with new known cases reported Friday were: Craighead (46), Pulaski (39), Faulkner (34), Sebastian (33), and Pope (27). The counties accounted for 25% of the 717 new community cases.

As of Friday at 2:30 p.m., there were 7,312,444 U.S. cases and 208,403 deaths. Globally, there were 34,429,410 cases and 1,025,075 deaths.