Took a drive around today, while of course maintaining isolation, didn’t even get outa the car. Covered about 50 miles and passed through towns ranging from 300 to 13,000 population, and saw way too much “Business As Usual”. While everyone looked to be complying with the restaurant dining room closure mandate, Schwans’ and several banks offices had full parking lots and all the lights on inside. Walmart and local grocery chain HyVee were almost as busy as usual, with HyVee asking customers to shop in store because they can’t keep up with the demand for deliveries.
What we’re seeing here is the latest strain of our rural epidemic, denial of danger. See that big steel hoop above the drivers seat of the tractor above? It’s a Rollover Protection System designed to protect the driver when things go topsy turvy, which happens a lot with tall narrow vehicles like tractors. New tractors have come with ROPS since the 70s, but like safety glasses and N95 masks they seem to be all too often MIA out here. In the metro areas where OSHA occasionally shows up you have the ROPS up and seat belt on and safety glasses and masks on if needed or you get fired. Out here you get funny looks if not ridicule for taking such reasonable safety precautions. Thus we have an ongoing epidemic of disabilities and deaths from stupid preventable accidents… And Coronavirus is just the latest deadly threat we’re ignoring. So while rural areas are under represented in cases so far, we’ll be over represented in the hospitalizations and fatalities.
Here’s some links to data from the 14 mostly rural continental states and Minnesota with details, and a couple other useful websites.
Links to data and state resources:
Alabama: 46 cases, most in Birmingham and other metros, only 74 tested!
Arkansas: 33 cases with at least 8 in rural counties, 336 tests done.
Iowa: 29 cases, 9 in rural counties, 19 in Iowa City area, number of tests not released.
Kentucky: 29 cases, At least 8 from rural counties, no tests in several coal counties.
Maine: 30? 42? 43? cases, 1700 tests! At least 11-12 from outside Portland and Bangor
Minnesota: 77 cases, out of tests after 2700+! most in MSP metro, cases in 5 rural counties.
Mississippi: 34 cases, 513 tests. several cases in rural counties.
Montana: 11 cases after over 500+ tests, no geographic data available.
North Dakota: 7 cases, 300+ tests. 4 cases in small towns or rural areas.
New Hampshire: 35 cases, ? tests, lousy website.
Oklahoma: 29 cases, 400+ tests. 11 cases in rural counties.
South Dakota: 11 cases, out of tests after 900+. 5 cases in rural counties.
Vermont: 19 cases, 600+ tests. Little geographic data.
West Virginia: 1 case after barely 100 tests, WV you ain’t testin’ hard enough!
Wyoming: 15 cases after 193 tests, concentrated in 2 urban counties and 2 rural.
Neat site with data for every state, territories, etc.
Another neat site with localized data- We need more of these to track this pandemic!