Republican Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, tweeted on Monday that there were only eight ICU beds available in the state amid a rush in COVID-19 cases.
Hutchinson announced very startling numbers, including the state's largest single-day increase in hospitalizations, covering its previous high of Covid-19 admissions.
The Arkansas Department of Health reported on Monday that a total of 1,376 people are hospitalized due to the coronavirus, which exceeds a record high of 1,371 hospitalizations recorded on January 2021.
At least 515 of them are in intensive care, where more than half are on ventilators and 21 new Covid-19 related deaths have been reported.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the US is now averaging more than 1,00,000 new COVID cases each day as every state is reporting high or extensive community transmission.
Arkansas ranks third in the country for new COVID cases, according to The Associated Press. Almost 43% of Arkansas residents 12 years and older have been fully vaccinated, as per the data from state health departments. Nationwide, 58.7% of residents 12 and older have been fully vaccinated.
Arkansas is one of a growing number of states, including Missouri Texas, and Florida, that are seeing Covid-19 cases explode, driven by the easily transmissible Delta virus variant and low vaccination rates, and hospitalization rates higher than any time during the pandemic.
According to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, current hospitalization rates are more than double the national rate.
In Florida, the hospitalization rate is more than triple the national rate. There are more than 65 people hospitalized with Covid-19 for every 100,000 people in Florida, about one out of every 1,500 state residents.
Also, each of these five states -- Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas -- have fully vaccinated less than half of their residents, lagging behind the US overall, according to CDC data.
Hutchinson urged Arkansans to be vaccinated against the pandemic. "Vaccinations reduce hospitalizations," the governor tweeted. "We saw the largest single-day increase in hospitalizations and have eclipsed our previous high of COVID hospitalizations."
