Rural areas safer - but not 'safe'
The Prairie News By Bill Knight
The coronavirus COVID-19 is spreading like an untended grassfire, inadequate testing means the number of cases is unclear, and attempts to slow the outbreak struggle to make a difference. So it’s difficult to keep up with the threat.
For instance, The Weekly Post on March 12 featured an article by Liz Carey of the Center for Rural Strategies headlined “Researchers say rural areas face less risk of coronavirus,” which noted how everyday close proximity puts people at risk – a reason social distancing is important, even in small towns where folks are used to going to churches, school activities and taverns. Carey’s story was accurate – three weeks ago.
Now, however, new information requires new caution: People in rural areas are generally less vulnerable to the virus, but we’re not exactly protected, much less immune. The Center last weekend reported, “So far, nonmetropolitan counties [counties with no city of 50,000 or more] account for only 3% of the total cases.”
“Only” is a loaded word since that statistic means that more than 3,000 rural Americans have become infected, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Systems, Science and Engineering, whose data base said U.S. cases as of Tuesday topped 164,000 (with 3,170 deaths), including more than 5,000 in Illinois, with 7 in Peoria, 4 in Tazewell and 4 in Woodford.
“There is no reason for us to believe that any county is safe or going to miss the impact of this virus,” said Brandie Combs from the Oklahoma State Department of Health. “Right now, I’m confident that every county has a positive case. Projections are very, very alarming.”
Cities are still the “hot spots” for the virus, said Matt Boyce, a researcher at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.
“Travel to and between cities has played a major role in how this outbreak has spread, but that said, the disease can still spread to rural areas,” he said.
Comparing the number of cases per million people (back on March 23), Medium metro areas (250,000-999,999 people) and Small metros (50,000-249,999) had lower rates than big cities – 48.8/M and 42.8/M, respectively, where Major metros were 202.4/M. But statistically, rural areas aren’t that much better off, at 28.4/M.
Last week, more than 100 rural counties reported their first COVID-19 case on Wednesday; by the next day about one-third of the country’s 1,976 rural counties had a COVID-19 case, and the death toll there almost tripled, from 11 Wednesday to 32 by Friday.
There are dire factors beyond the ease of transmission.
“It is important to consider how rural areas may be differently affected,” said sociologist Shannon Monnat, codirector of the Policy, Place and Population Health Lab at Syracuse University. “Rural parts of the U.S. may be comparatively better off than urban places due to lower population density. On the other hand, there are several features of rural populations and places that increase their risk of coronavirusrelated mortality and other long-term impacts.”
Those include rural America’s older population, the prevalence of serious health conditions, a healthcare infrastructure not as strong as urban areas, and economies more vulnerable to crises.
The Centers for Disease Control says that about 80 percent percent of COVID19 deaths have been among adults 65 years old and older.
“This is bad news for rural America,” Monnat said. “The average share of the population that is age 65+ is 21.7 percent in the smallest nonmetropolitan counties.”
Public-health experts say people with underlying medical ailments are at greater risk, and rural Americans have higher incidences of such disorders – respiratory disease, depression, diabetes, heart disease and lung cancer – than city-dwellers.
“This means that although transmission rates may be lower in rural areas, the percentage of cases resulting in death and other serious complications could be higher in rural than in urban areas,” Monnat said.
Also, there are fewer rural hospitals nationwide. About 125 shut down in the last decade, and the Associated Press reported 51,000 Intensive Care Unit beds in urban counties and 5,600 in rural areas – less than 1 percent in areas where 19 percent of Americans live. A handful of COVID-19 cases could overwhelm a rural clinic.
All that is complicated by a lack of testing that’s worse than cities – Illinois’ testing rate is 70 per 100,000 people compared to more than 400 per 100,000 in the state of Washington.
Lastly, the virus hitting rural areas – whether the stricken have stayed at home or worked in farm fields (agriculture is an “essential service” under Ill. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “shelter-in-place” order) – could ripple over the continent, including urban neighbors.
“Rural America supplies disproportionate shares of the nation’s food, energy, military personnel and natural recreation – these are resources urban America depends upon,” Monnat said. “Rural, urban or somewhere between – we are all in this together.”
And rural areas feel the economic impact beyond closed retailers.
Corn used for ethanol faces price drops, according to University of Illinois agricultural economist Todd Hubbs.
“Since the release of the February World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, USDA’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) released a short-term energy outlook that lowered domestic gasoline consumption for 2020 due to impacts from the coronavirus,” Hubbs said. “Depending on the effect from the virus on the summer driving season, the current projection for corn used for ethanol may be under question.
“If the EIA projection is correct, the production level of ethanol sits lower,” he added.
The Prairie News By Bill Knight
The coronavirus COVID-19 is spreading like an untended grassfire, inadequate testing means the number of cases is unclear, and attempts to slow the outbreak struggle to make a difference. So it’s difficult to keep up with the threat.
For instance, The Weekly Post on March 12 featured an article by Liz Carey of the Center for Rural Strategies headlined “Researchers say rural areas face less risk of coronavirus,” which noted how everyday close proximity puts people at risk – a reason social distancing is important, even in small towns where folks are used to going to churches, school activities and taverns. Carey’s story was accurate – three weeks ago.
Now, however, new information requires new caution: People in rural areas are generally less vulnerable to the virus, but we’re not exactly protected, much less immune. The Center last weekend reported, “So far, nonmetropolitan counties [counties with no city of 50,000 or more] account for only 3% of the total cases.”
“Only” is a loaded word since that statistic means that more than 3,000 rural Americans have become infected, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Systems, Science and Engineering, whose data base said U.S. cases as of Tuesday topped 164,000 (with 3,170 deaths), including more than 5,000 in Illinois, with 7 in Peoria, 4 in Tazewell and 4 in Woodford.
“There is no reason for us to believe that any county is safe or going to miss the impact of this virus,” said Brandie Combs from the Oklahoma State Department of Health. “Right now, I’m confident that every county has a positive case. Projections are very, very alarming.”
Cities are still the “hot spots” for the virus, said Matt Boyce, a researcher at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University.
“Travel to and between cities has played a major role in how this outbreak has spread, but that said, the disease can still spread to rural areas,” he said.
Comparing the number of cases per million people (back on March 23), Medium metro areas (250,000-999,999 people) and Small metros (50,000-249,999) had lower rates than big cities – 48.8/M and 42.8/M, respectively, where Major metros were 202.4/M. But statistically, rural areas aren’t that much better off, at 28.4/M.
Last week, more than 100 rural counties reported their first COVID-19 case on Wednesday; by the next day about one-third of the country’s 1,976 rural counties had a COVID-19 case, and the death toll there almost tripled, from 11 Wednesday to 32 by Friday.
There are dire factors beyond the ease of transmission.
“It is important to consider how rural areas may be differently affected,” said sociologist Shannon Monnat, codirector of the Policy, Place and Population Health Lab at Syracuse University. “Rural parts of the U.S. may be comparatively better off than urban places due to lower population density. On the other hand, there are several features of rural populations and places that increase their risk of coronavirusrelated mortality and other long-term impacts.”
Those include rural America’s older population, the prevalence of serious health conditions, a healthcare infrastructure not as strong as urban areas, and economies more vulnerable to crises.
The Centers for Disease Control says that about 80 percent percent of COVID19 deaths have been among adults 65 years old and older.
“This is bad news for rural America,” Monnat said. “The average share of the population that is age 65+ is 21.7 percent in the smallest nonmetropolitan counties.”
Public-health experts say people with underlying medical ailments are at greater risk, and rural Americans have higher incidences of such disorders – respiratory disease, depression, diabetes, heart disease and lung cancer – than city-dwellers.
“This means that although transmission rates may be lower in rural areas, the percentage of cases resulting in death and other serious complications could be higher in rural than in urban areas,” Monnat said.
Also, there are fewer rural hospitals nationwide. About 125 shut down in the last decade, and the Associated Press reported 51,000 Intensive Care Unit beds in urban counties and 5,600 in rural areas – less than 1 percent in areas where 19 percent of Americans live. A handful of COVID-19 cases could overwhelm a rural clinic.
All that is complicated by a lack of testing that’s worse than cities – Illinois’ testing rate is 70 per 100,000 people compared to more than 400 per 100,000 in the state of Washington.
Lastly, the virus hitting rural areas – whether the stricken have stayed at home or worked in farm fields (agriculture is an “essential service” under Ill. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “shelter-in-place” order) – could ripple over the continent, including urban neighbors.
“Rural America supplies disproportionate shares of the nation’s food, energy, military personnel and natural recreation – these are resources urban America depends upon,” Monnat said. “Rural, urban or somewhere between – we are all in this together.”
And rural areas feel the economic impact beyond closed retailers.
Corn used for ethanol faces price drops, according to University of Illinois agricultural economist Todd Hubbs.
“Since the release of the February World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, USDA’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) released a short-term energy outlook that lowered domestic gasoline consumption for 2020 due to impacts from the coronavirus,” Hubbs said. “Depending on the effect from the virus on the summer driving season, the current projection for corn used for ethanol may be under question.
“If the EIA projection is correct, the production level of ethanol sits lower,” he added.
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