FAYETTEVILLE, Ark — At Hull Family Medicine in Rogers, Dr. Robert Hull worked until he passed away due to COVID-19.
Patients have come up to the clinic throughout the day leaving flowers and notes to pay their respects, he was one of seven new deaths in Northwest Arkansas.
On Monday (June 8) Arkansas saw an increase of 314 COVID-19 cases with 125 of those being in Northwest Arkansas.
“In terms of the counties over the last 24 hours, two counties to note, Washington County with 86 new cases and Benton county 41 cases all the rest of the counties in Arkansas have fewer than 20 new cases,” said Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Gov. Hutchinson addressed Northwest Arkansas as a hotspot.
The majority of the new cases are from Washington County, which currently has 636 active cases and Benton County has 505.
With all of the new community spread cases, we asked the governor if they could be from the recent protests.
“We have not identified any of the new cases from the protest at this point, obviously the cases that came in over the weekend they will continue to be traced and we will see what that data indicates,” Hutchinson said.
With the many new community cases come new hospitalizations. 26 new hospitalizations were announced Monday, bringing the total to 171.
“26 patients is a lot of patients but most of the hospitals even in northwest, have much larger bed capacity than that,” said Health Secretary Nate Smith.
As cases continue to rise in the area, Gov. Hutchinson encourages everyone to stay self-disciplined and wear masks and practice social distancing.