LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas saw its biggest one day increase of COVID-19 cases on Friday (June 12).
The state saw an increase of 731 positive cases of COVID-19, totaling 11,547 cumulative cases.
As of Friday, there is a total of 3,764 active cases, 203 hospitalized (up 16), 49 patients on ventilators, 176 deaths (up 5) and 7,607 recoveries. 5,591 tests were done in the last 24 hours.
One-third of the new cases in the last 24 hours have come from a Tyson Foods facility. Governor Asa Hutchinson said out of the 199 Tyson employees who tested positive for the virus, only one showed symptoms.
The top counties include Washington County with 220 new cases and Benton County with 91.
Health officials continue to urge those in public to wear masks and keep a social distance to help contain the spread of the virus.
Gov. Hutchinson says "we need to live life, just do it carefully and safely."
The governor says the state will continue with its plan to reopen to Phase 2 on Monday (June 15).
Local city leaders are trying to combat the areas affected the most by the virus.
“I can promise you I take it more seriously now than I did before this spike happened," said Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse. "We’ve always encouraged people to do the right thing. We’ve heard from day one ways to lessen the chance to get the virus."
In Northwest Arkansas, the City of Springdale has been hit the hardest.
“There’s a higher percentage of those underlying health issues in the Marshallese community and our Latino community as well has been hit very hard,” Mayor Sprouse said.
The clusters of cases have been found in households, neighborhoods and workplaces.
Despite the rise in cases, people are still hopeful businesses will soon return to a fuller capacity.
“It’s really hard to make a profit when you can only put one-third of the people in a restaurant that was designed to handle obviously a larger capacity," said Raymond Burns, President and CEO of the Rogers-Lowell Chamber of Commerce. "I think the most important now that this is allowed as long as we do what we need to do to ourselves and to keep others safe there should be a problem.”
Members from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be in Northwest Arkansas Saturday (June 13) and will stay for three weeks to monitor the growing cases, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.
Senator John Boozman said Arkansans need to continue to enjoy the Natural State while also staying safe.