Coronavirus outbreak at high school pool party fuels ‘second peak,’ Arkansas gov says

A high school pool party “everybody thought was harmless” has fueled a second peak of coronavirus cases in Arkansas, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Saturday.

“A high school swim party that I’m sure everybody thought was harmless,” Hutchinson said at a press briefing, a video shows. “They’re young, they’re swimming, they’re just having activity, and positive cases resulted from that.”

Hutchinson did not say how many people attended the party or subsequently tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.

He called the incident “just an encouragement for us to be disciplined in our activities.”

“During this Memorial (Day) weekend, we want to be out and we want to enjoy ourselves, we want to remember this holiday and those that have served our country and given their lives in service of our country,” Hutchinson said. “But let’s be safe and let’s be disciplined at the same time.”

Arkansas, which closed schools but never issued a stay-home order, had 163 new cases of the virus on Saturday, CNN reported. Hutchinson described it as “a second peak.”

“It’s clear and evident to me that we have one peak, and then we’ve had a deep dip, and then we’re having a second peak right now, and they’re really about 30 days apart,” he said at the press briefing.

Arkansas has reported at least 5,612 confirmed coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 5.3 million cases of the COVID-19 virus have been confirmed worldwide with more than 341,000 deaths as of May 24, the university reported. The United States has more than 1.6 million confirmed cases with more than 96,000 deaths.

The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic. In the United States, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency.

This story was originally published May 24, 2020 at 8:17 AM with the headline "Coronavirus outbreak at high school pool party fuels ‘second peak,’ Arkansas gov says."