The coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately affecting black Arkansans, according to statistics from the state Health Department.
Black people make up 15.7% of Arkansas' population and 23.5% of the state's residents who have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Arkansas Department of Health.
White people, who make up 79% of Arkansas' population, account for 66.9% of positive cases in the state, according to the Health Department.
Arkansas has an estimated population of 3,017,804 as of July, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Health Secretary Nate Smith said of 18 people who have died in Arkansas, four were black and the others were white.
The 22% who were black, he noted, is "very similar" to the percentage of all people who have tested positive who were black. That was out of the 1,023 people who had tested positive as of Wednesday afternoon. By Wednesday night, the number had increased to 1,077.
Kevin Smith, the mayor of Helena-West Helena, said he believes the numbers don't accurately show how severely the coronavirus is affecting Arkansas' black residents because testing for the virus hasn't been widely available in the Delta.
"It's come late to this region," Smith said. "As per-capita testing will indicate, I think we will be similar to the rest of the Deep South."
By contrast, in Louisiana, where black people make up 33% of the population, 70% of those who have died of covid-19 were black, according to the Louisiana Department of Health. There have been 17,030 confirmed cases of covid-19 in Louisiana and 652 deaths.
Smith said the most affluent parts of Arkansas have the most hospitals, clinics and physicians, so that's where most of the testing has been done.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 75% of Helena-West Helena's population is black. The city has an estimated population of 10,414.
"We have a very large African-American community in my city, and a very high rate of diabetes, heart disease, respiratory illnesses are present here," said Smith. "We also have a high elderly population as a percentage of our total population. ... So we have an incredibly vulnerable population to this particular disease."
Smith said many people in the Delta are reluctant to go to the doctor, in part because of the cost. Many also don't have a computer or access to the internet, where they could read about the symptoms of the coronavirus.
"We have a culture of people who try to stay at home and fight it out, and don't go to the doctor," he said.
As testing continues throughout the Arkansas Delta, Smith said he believes the numbers will more closely resemble those in Mississippi, which has had 2,003 positive cases and 67 deaths. Black people accounted for 56% of those cases and 72% of the deaths, according to the Mississippi Department of Health. Black people account for 37.8% of the population of Mississippi.
Meg Mirivel, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department, said commercial labs don't provide racial demographics for people who test negative for the coronavirus. As of Wednesday night, 14,909 coronavirus tests had been performed for Arkansans and 1,077 had tested positive. The majority of the tests were done by commercial labs, said Mirivel.
Nationwide, of the victims whose demographic data was provided by officials -- nearly 3,300 of the 13,000 deaths -- about 42% were black, according to an Associated Press analysis. Black people account for roughly 21% of the population in the areas covered the analysis.
Information for this article was contributed by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 04/09/2020