Here's the story by Will Stone, with vignettes from Montana, New York, and Ohio, reporting on a survey conducted by NPR, the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public School and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The survey found that one in four rural households have been unable to get care for serious health issues.
An excerpt from Stone's story follows:
"The crisis is really widening the fractures that have already existed in rural communities," says Brock Slabach, senior vice president of the National Rural Health Association, based in Kansas.
New coronavirus infections in rural America are now at record levels, with 54% of rural counties in the "red zone," defined as places with an infection rate of 100 or more new cases per 100,000 residents.
Only 14% of the U.S. population lives in rural counties, but last week 20% of new cases and 23% of COVID-19-related deaths were in rural counties, according to an analysis by The Daily Yonder, an online newspaper that covers rural America.
Rural Americans contacted for the NPR poll — from Montana to Georgia to upstate New York — discussed problems getting treatment for many types of health problems, including the virus.
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