Coronavirus in rural America (Part V): So much rural coronavirus news, so little time to blog

In light of the fire hose of rural coronavirus news, I'll collect just some headlines and short excerpts here. 

First, on the healthcare front:

Here is a story from the Billings, Montana newspaper on the healthcare challenges facing rural hospitals.  Here's the lede:

As the number of cases of coronavirus escalates in Montana, hospitals are preparing for more patients while also working to protect staff and others from exposure. 

Even the smallest hospitals in rural Montana are preparing to possibly screen and test everyone who comes through the door, while continuing to care for their older, long-term patients. 

Roundup Memorial Healthcare is just now recovering from an outbreak of influenza B in the town’s elementary school, where about 25% of the students were infected, according to Roundup Memorial Healthcare CEO Holly Wolff. 

As of Saturday evening, at least 30 people in Montana have tested positive for the coronavirus and numerous state and county officials have declared a state of emergency.

Roundup, the town featured in the story, has a population of just 1,788, and is not far west of Billings; it is the county seat of Musselshell County, population 4,538.

A story out of neighboring Wyoming, specifically Sublette County population 10,000, is here.  Thanks to WyoFile.

And here is a map of where the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds in the United States are--at the county level.  As the map-makers observe, less than half of U.S. counties have a single ICU bed. Needless to say, this has enormous public health and spatial inequality implications--most notably for where people are most likely to survive the coronavirus.

A just-off-the presses policy brief by Shannon Monnat of Syracuse University is titled "Why Coronavirus Could Hit U.S. Areas Harder."  It touches on many of the demographic and resource issues I've covered on the blog in recent days.  A short excerpt follows:

As rates of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection and death continue to rise, it is important to consider how rural areas may be differentially affected. On the one hand, rural parts of the U.S. may be comparatively better off than urban places due to lower population density in rural areas. Lower population density reduces opportunities for virus spread. On the other hand, there are several features of rural populations and places that increase their risk of coronavirus-related mortality and other long-term health impacts.

These include the realities that rural populations are older and have higher rates of several chronic health conditions, and rural areas have a less robust health care infrastructure to deal with coronavirus cases. Rural economies may also be affected in different ways than their urban counterparts, which has implications for long-term rural population health outcomes.

Second, on the "culture" front, here is a March 20, 2020 piece from the Sacramento Bee, but with dateline Fort Scott, Kansas, on rural resistance to the reality of the coronavirus.  The headline is "‘People need to wake up.’ A skeptical rural U.S. lacks resources for coronavirus fight."  An excerpt follows:

Roxine Poznich says she won’t close her used book shop in Fort Scott, Kansas, until someone makes her. 

The 73-year-old proprietor worked in the lab at the town’s hospital for decades. But that job vanished when Mercy Hospital closed its doors two years ago. She now relies on the bookstore income for grocery money, she said. 

Like many who live away from the country’s large population centers, Poznich says she isn’t too worried about the coronavirus. But she said the lack of a hospital in the southeast Kansas town of 7,800 will exacerbate any local outbreak.

“I think it will make a big difference,” she said. “It just depends on how hard it hits our county.”

As U.S. cities virtually shut down and brace for an influx of coronavirus infections, the story in rural America is a different one. From small-town Florida to Georgia’s central peach region, from southern Mississippi to the Kansas and Texas plains, some residents say the threat is overblown. Others worry about how they will face the pending crisis with a widespread lack of resources, supplies and preparedness.

Third, here is a story out of New York that implicates both culture and health.  As in California--year-round residents of rural parts of New York are tired of week-enders/second home owners converging on these enclaves in order to avoid the "plague" ravaging New York City.  The headline is "The Wealthy Flee Coronavirus. Vacation Towns Respond: Stay Away."  Once again, the story is one of rural gentrification and the tensions created--here, those tensions heightened by a pandemic and a competition for scarce resources.  An excerpt follows:

This clash between year-round residents and those with the means to retreat to vacation homes intensified on Tuesday as White House officials advised anyone who had passed through or fled New York City to place themselves in a 14-day quarantine. 

“They’re pumping gas. They’re stopping at grocery stores,” said Kim Langdon, 48, of Ashland, N.Y. “If they’re infected and they don’t know it, they’re putting everyone at risk.” 

The expletive-filled commentary on a Catskills Facebook page was less subtle.
“The only cases in Greene County were brought here from downstate people so stay down there,” one man wrote. “Just because you have a second home up here doesn’t mean you have the right to put us at risk.” 

Mayors, town supervisors and the governors of at least two states have warned part-time residents of tourist destinations to stay away.

Fourth, here is a New York Times piece on the importance of broadband access when it comes to defeating the coronavirus.  The author is FCC commissioner Geoffrey Starks, and the opening paragraph follows:

One instruction remains consistent and clear during the coronavirus pandemic: Stay home. For many of us, that means taking our daily activities — work, school, medical care and connecting with loved ones — online. But not for everyone. The coming weeks will lay bare the already-cruel reality of the digital divide: tens of millions of Americans cannot access or cannot afford the home broadband connections they need to telework, access medical information and help young people learn when school is closed. When public health requires social distancing and even quarantine, closing the digital divide becomes central to our safety and economic security.

I'm sure I'll have more to report from the frontlines of rural America as the coronavirus advances in the coming days.