I think some clarity on how the state is including cases from the Cummins Unit would be useful, given how much it is being discussed on this website. (1/X)

The *official* state tally as of now is 1,923 cases, but that does not include at least some chunk of the ~600 cases at the Cummins Unit. That's due to many inmate tests being processed at a VA hospital and private labs, and the results are being slowly entered into state totals.

Both @AsaHutchinson and Nate Smith have said that they intend to include ALL of the Cummins results in the state totals once they are done being entered. (Confusing, yes, malevolent, I don't think so).

Here's where the state’s counting could cause some issues:

Smith said today that the governor would continue to publish charts showing a rolling trend line -- AKA "The Curve" -- of cases that does NOT include cases at Cummins or other corrections facilities. That chart is seen here:

That will certainly show a flattened "curve" in Arkansas. The purpose, as @voxdotcom explains, is to get that line below the capacity of the health care system, so that sick patients don't overload hospitals and supplies of medical equipment.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171481/coronavirus-us-cases-quarantine-cancellation

The problem with that method of counting is, when prisoners get really sick, they go to the same hospitals as the rest of us. They get the same doctors, the same PPE and if needed, the same ventilators.

I asked the gov and Dr. Smith about this today, and their response was optimistic that the outbreak at Cummins (in rural Lincoln County) would not overload the health care system. Cummins has a lot of asymptomatic cases and a younger average population, they said.

Hopefully, they're right.

But people in prison are also likely to come from low-incomes, where they've had less access to good health care their whole lives (not to mention the health care in prison). There's also medical issues related to smoking, drugs and alcohol abuse.

This is from a @KFF report today:

Which is all to say that prisoners are in this with all of us. If the outbreak at Cummins is not managed -- or if god forbid it spreads in another prison -- it will affect people beyond those places.

fin.