With new cases outpacing recoveries, the number of cases in the state that were considered active rose by 238, to 8,133, topping 8,000 for the first time since Feb. 23.

For the third time in just over week, however, the state didn’t report any additional deaths from covid-19.

The increase in cases, which followed spikes of 954 on Wednesday and 1,000 on Thursday, was larger by 110 than the one the previous Friday.

“We’re just building this kind of increasing mass of infectious cases that could potentially spread covid-19 to other people,” Health Department Director Jennifer Dillaha said, noting the active case total has increased by about 2,000 over the past week.

Through genomic sequencing conducted at its laboratory, she said the department on Friday identified 41 cases that had been caused by BA.5 and 20 that were caused by another strain, BA.2.12.1, that is dominant nationwide.

The total number of cases caused by each subvariant isn’t known because only a portion of test specimens are submitted for sequencing.

Read the full article from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette here.