Arkansas has just 8 intensive care beds, as state saw its biggest increase in hospitalizations

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In a tweet, Hutchinson said there were only eight intensive care unit beds available in the state.

The Arkansas Department of Health is reporting 995 new cases of Covid-19 and 21 new deaths linked to Covid-19 on Monday.

There are currently 1,376 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in Arkansas, up 103 from Sunday, according to the department. Of those, 286 cases are currently on ventilators, 25 more than the day before, the department said.

Almost 43% of Arkansas residents aged 12 and older have been fully immunized, according to data from the state’s health department. Nationally, 58.7% of residents aged 12 and older have been fully immunized, according to data from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Vaccines reduce hospitalizations,” Hutchinson said in his tweet.

Arkansas is among a growing number of states, including Missouri, Texas and Florida, that are seeing Covid-19 cases explode, driven by the easily transmitted variant of the Delta virus and low vaccination rates, and higher hospitalization rates than at any time during the pandemic.

In Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, current hospitalization rates are more than double the national rate, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

In Florida, the hospitalization rate is more than triple the national rate. There are more than 65 people hospitalized with Covid-19 per 100,000 people in Florida, about one in 1,500 residents of the state.

Louisiana set a record for hospitalizations for Covid-19 last week.

Overall, about 1 in 5 intensive care beds in the United States are occupied by Covid-19 patients. But in these five states with the highest hospitalization rates, the share of intensive care beds occupied by Covid-19 patients is even higher, ranging from 25% in Alabama to more than a third in Florida.

Additionally, each of those five states – Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas – have fully immunized less than half of their residents, lagging behind the United States overall. , according to CDC data.

CNN’s Deidre McPhillips contributed to this report.



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