The College of Public Health will publish periodic briefings designed to update the 15- and 30-day projections of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths between UAMS COPH COVID-19 Reports. Briefings will be published when cases, hospitalizations, or deaths are rapidly changing in times between the monthly reports.
Sept. 27 – Oct. 26
The College of Public Health (COPH) publishes periodic briefings designed to update
COVID-19 forecasts and projects reported in the UAMS COPH COVID-19 Reports.
Data used to prepare this briefing are from the Arkansas Department of Health reported
throughs September 27, 2021.
Key Findings. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are growing at a slower rate
than in July and August.
- The models are forecasting 6,145 new COVID-19 cases by Oct. 11 and 9,465 new cases by Oct. 26. New daily cases are expected to remain moderately high, averaging nearly 316 per day.
- The 7-day moving average of cases in Arkansas, as reported by USAFacts.org, is the same as it was on Dec. 31, 2020.
- We expect 834 new hospitalizations by Oct. 11 and 1,311 by Oct. 25. Daily hospitalizations are expected to average 45 per day.
- The average expected number of newly hospitalized individuals per day is 26. We estimate there will be a rapid decline in newly hospitalized individuals by the end of October. This is consistent with the trend that is beginning to emerge in the past week.
- The models are forecasting 361 new COVID-19 deaths by Oct. 11 and 533 new deaths in the next 30 days.
- We estimate 14 COVID-19 daily deaths per day across the next 30 days, decreasing by a third during that time.
As some will recall, we forecast Arkansas would cross the 7,000 COVID-19 deaths on
Aug. 31. The actual number of deaths on that date was 6,934. The models are forecasting the
state will cross the 8,000 deaths threshold around October 9th.
The current pandemic appears to on the downside of an exponential growth curve, and will
likely continue to decline until it finds a steady-state similar to April and May of 2021. The real
question now is: will the pandemic behave in a wave fashion with repeated surges and declines,
with each surge having a smaller crest or simply reach a low point and remain there.