Special Report

These are the Counties in the Fort Smith, AR-OK Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 30, 2021 4:45 am

Though vaccine distribution is well underway across the United States, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 34,256,300 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Fort Smith metropolitan area, which covers parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma, a total of 33,996 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 12,090 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,471 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Fort Smith is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Fort Smith metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Sebastian County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 16,266 infections in Sebastian County, or 12,762 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Sebastian County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Fort Smith area, it also has more deaths attributable to the virus per capita than the metro area as a whole. There have been a total of 226 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Sebastian County, compared to 191 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Fort Smith metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of July 28, 2021.

These are all the counties in Arkansas where COVID-19 is slowing (and where it’s still getting worse).