Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Thursday that he's considering placing stricter limits on indoor gatherings as the state's count of coronavirus cases rose by almost 2,800, setting a new one-day high.
At a news conference, Hutchinson also said he had made a request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for 10 beds at the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans Hospital in Little Rock to expand the state's capacity to care for coronavirus patients.
He also said the state would adopt guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowing for shorter quarantine periods for people who have been near someone with the virus.
Instead of quarantining for 14 days, the guidelines allow people without symptoms to quarantine for just 10 days, or for seven if they have a negative test for the virus.
Despite calls by some doctors to close bars and restaurants to limit the spread of the virus, Hutchinson reiterated Thursday that he doesn't want to do that because he hasn't seen evidence that the virus is spreading in those businesses.
But he said he's considering tightening a state Department of Health directive covering indoor events such weddings, concerts and plays, as well as movie theaters and other entertainment venues.
Since June 15, the directive has required events with more than 100 people to submit plans to the Health Department for approval.
"One of the things that we're looking at, and I'm giving everybody a head's up on this, that we may be announcing that that requirement's going to be reduced down so that if you're going to have a gathering of 20 people indoors in a social environment or in an event atmosphere, then you to have to get a plan approved by the Department of Health," Hutchinson said.
Health Secretary Jose Romero said officials have discussed lowering the threshold so that organizers of events with more than 10 people would be required to submit plans.
Hutchinson said he's also talked to Health Department officials about increasing the enforcement of the department's rules for such events.
"We want that oversight. We want [Health Department Environmental Health Branch Chief] Terry Paul's team to be out there to a greater extent," Hutchinson said. "We've talked about that. We hope to have some announcements in regard to that next week."
The state's death toll from the virus, as tracked by the Health Department, rose Thursday by 33, to 2,555.
After setting records for the previous four days, the number of people hospitalized in the state with covid-19 fell by 16, to 1,072.
The 2,789 cases added to the state's tallies exceeded the previous record for a one-day increase by more than 400 cases.
That record had been the 2,348 cases that were added on Nov. 26.
