Washington Post: A rural S.D. community ignored the virus for months. Then people started dying.. “In a state where the Republican governor, Kristi L. Noem, has defied calls for a statewide mask mandate even as cases hit record levels, many in this rural community an hour west of Sioux Falls ignored the virus for months, […]
New York Times: ‘Small Town, No Hospital’: Covid-19 Is Overwhelming Rural West Texas. “Out past the seesawing oil pumpjacks of Midland and Odessa, where roadrunners flit across two-lane roads and desert shrubs freckle the long, beige horizon, the Big Bend region of Texas is one of the most remote parts of the mainland United States […]
BuzzFeed News: “COVID In Rural America Is A Horror Story”: How The Pandemic Is Devastating Small Town Hospitals. “Healthcare workers in smaller towns are as exhausted and despondent as their counterparts in bigger cities. They, too, are facing shortages of personal protective equipment and are watching hospital beds and ICU wards fill up rapidly. But […]
Greensboro News & Record: In rural North Carolina, COVID-19 skepticism meets surging case counts and deaths. “Before Ms. Pearl Wiggins tested positive for the virus, two of the most important numbers that defined her were 47, the number of years she’d been married, and three, the number of children she’d had. In late October she’d […]
Associated Press: Cut Off: School Closings Leave Rural Students Isolated. “The midday arrival of a school bus at Cyliss Castillo’s home on the remote edge of a mesa breaks up the long days of boredom and isolation for the high school senior. The driver hands over food in white plastic bags, collects Castillo’s school assignments […]
Washington Post: Smallest health providers face biggest problem finding protective gear amid coronavirus surge. “Most U.S. hospitals and health systems have, over the pandemic’s nine months, stitched together systems and improvisations to acquire masks, gowns, gloves and other personal protective equipment. Yet many small health-care and social-service settings continue to suffer from shortages they expect […]
ABC News: An American tragedy: Inside the towns hardest hit by coronavirus. “A South Dakota doctor is moonlighting as a newspaper columnist, urging readers to protect themselves against the virus that killed both his parents. The sheriff in a Kansas town is fighting for his life in a Denver hospital he was sent to for […]
STAT News: ‘We’re being left behind’: Rural hospitals can’t afford ultra-cold freezers to store the leading Covid-19 vaccine. “The vaccine, developed by Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech, seems to provide 90% immunity according to early data released on Monday. But there’s a catch: The vaccine has to be stored at -70 degrees Celsius. Typical […]
WOWT: Rural EMS teams face dwindling donations as COVID-19 cases rise. “Rural EMS departments are having a tough time keeping up amid the pandemic; donations are down and expenses are up, forcing them to make some difficult decisions.”
Daily Evergreen: New tool shows rural-urban gap in COVID-19 cases. “As Whitman County reports 18 deaths from COVID-19 over the span of about one month, WSU researchers are looking to a new rural COVID-19 tracking tool to understand gaps in rural and urban areas…. The tool, COVID Urban Rural Explorer, collects data from The New […]
Washington Post: As the coronavirus surges, it is reaching into the nation’s last untouched areas. “Few places would seem better able to ride out an infectious-disease pandemic than Petroleum County, Mont., whose 500 people spread over 1,656 square miles, much of it public lands and cattle ranches. For most of this year, it did just […]
The Daily Wildcat: Educating and equipping rural emergency departments with the powerful tool of lung ultrasound. “One of the significant truths the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed is the vulnerability and disparity of resources between rural hospitals and academic centers like the University of Arizona College of Medicine. To address one of these disparities, associate professor […]
ABC News: The last COVID-free counties in America. “The four counties in the United States that haven’t reported a single COVID-19 case have some commonalities. They’re sparsely populated and geographically isolated. They’re solidly middle-class. In two counties, tourism has ground to a sudden halt because of the pandemic. But testing in areas without strong health […]
AgriPulse: New tool locates Wi-Fi hot spots in rural communities. “A new interactive map from the American Connection Project (ACP) makes it easier to find free internet connectivity across the nation. The new map includes locations of 2,300 free Wi-Fi hot spots across 49 states with the hope of adding more sites in the coming […]
University of Utah: The rise of ‘Zoom Towns’ in the rural west. “When COVID-19 hit the United States, small towns near ski areas such as Park City, Utah, and Sun Valley, Idaho, experienced some of the highest per capita cases; people from around the world had brought the virus along with their skis. As the […]