The current level of new COVID-19 cases in the United States puts the nation at levels not seen since the end of March 2020. But that’s not news. It’s not news because the U.S. has been hovering at nearly the same level throughout the month of June. No matter how it’s sliced, over 11,000 cases a day of any disease is high. And the number has remained high, even as testing rates have declined even more sharply than case counts. Some states have conducted fewer than 200 tests per 100,000 people over the last week. Other states have simply stopped reporting the numbers to the CDC.
And then there is Missouri. Day in and day out over the last three weeks, Missouri has simply dominated the charts when it comes to new cases of COVID-19 per capita. But just as cases are not distributed evenly across the nation, Missouri is also far from a uniform disaster. In St. Louis County, just under half the population has been vaccinated. In rural McDonald County, the number is an astonishingly low 14%. And that’s just one of fifteen Missouri counties where vaccination rates are still in the teens.
Some of these counties are clustered in the rural north central part of the state, in farming counties with relatively low populations. Others are clustered in the southwest, around Springfield and “entertainment capital” Branson—something that might be worth considering when planning a vacation. But as the Associated Press reports, the whole state has become a part of a kind of mad experiment; one in which Missouri appears determined to keep doing the wrong thing, even if it kills lots and lots of Missourians.
Just two weeks ago, Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed a bill that had been hurried through the GOP-dominated state legislature. That bill limits the powers of county health officials. It makes it illegal for those officials to issue a mask mandate, and limits their ability to do anything that “restricts businesses, churches, schools and other public places” to just three weeks.
That bill also makes it illegal for local governments to require vaccination to use any public services. How this will affect Missouri schools in the fall remains to be tested. These rules don’t just apply to COVID-19, but to any future public health crisis. Still, the crisis that the state has going at the moment is more than sufficient.
On the above map, the top number on the scale is simply the current number in Missouri. It’s been that way for weeks. Looking on a state level, the massive variation between counties becomes more apparent.
The colors here may not be all that different, but the scale certainly is. Major urban areas around St. Louis, Kansas City, and Columbia have rates lower than most states. But the worst counties have numbers that are many times times higher. The overall number of cases in the state is down because the major population centers are doing well. However the core of the state is burning hot with COVID-19.
In these counties, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has actually risen over the last month. As the Delta variant becomes prominent in the state, those patients are trending younger. They’re also trending sicker. One major health care chain reported that 60% to 65% of those in the ICU were under the age of 40. These are people in their teens, 20s, and 30s who thought that COVID-19 was just something for “old people” and no threat to someone like them. They’re learning the hard way that what they’ve been told on conservative talk radio doesn’t exactly square with reality.
Even as much of the nation begins to relax, hospitals in Missouri are again reaching out to expand their staffs. “I feel like last year at this time it was health care heroes and everybody was celebrating and bringing food to the hospital and doing prayer vigils and stuff,” said Erik Frederick, the chief administrative officer at Mercy Hospital Springfield. “And now everyone is like, ‘The lake is open. Let’s go.’ We are still here doing this.”
As the Delta variant expands, other nations—and many states—are holding onto rules designed to protect the populace, or even tightening up on restrictions. Missouri is doing none of that.
“We will be the canary,” said Frederick. When it comes to showing the rest of the nation how to keep dying even when help is available, that may be the case. But if Missouri is the canary, it’s also the mine, and the state’s Republican politicians are dragging it down into the dark.