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““One of the negatives of living in a rural community is you think it protects you somehow,” says Leibrand, who for years has also been the health officer—a sort of local surgeon general—of the county, a sprawling expanse of rich alluvial farmland, exurban bedroom communities and steep Cascade peaks midway between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. “We get a little bit cavalier, a little lazy about social distancing.” On April 1, Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota—one of five states, all in the central heartland, without stay-at-home orders—defended her decision to leave South Dakotans “free to exercise their rights to work, to worship, and to play” by saying, “South Dakota is not New York City, and our sense of personal responsibility, our resiliency and our already sparse population density put us in a great position to manage this virus” without resorting to the “draconian” measures taken elsewhere.
Complacency is fast fading, however, as rural residents realize that, far from being immune, they may be uniquely vulnerable when the epidemic reaches them. Even as Noem spoke, Covid-19 was spreading at a Sioux Falls meatpacking plant that subsequently closed after more than 300 workers fell sick, and local officials across the state begged her to issue shutdown and shelter-in-place orders.
As of press time, all but one of Washington’s 39 counties, most of them rural, had reported Covid-19 cases. Nationwide, more than two-thirds of rural counties had confirmed cases as of April 6, a New York Times analysis found, and across rural America, the per capita infection rate “was more than double what it was six days earlier.” That’s as fast as or faster than recent increases in Chicago, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles and New York. The country’s highest Covid-19 rate is in Blaine County, Idaho, home to 22,277 residents and the Sun Mountain ski resort.
– Politico, ‘It Really Is the Perfect Storm’: Coronavirus Comes for Rural America.
“It’s not that Republicans believe everything Trump is saying. An exclusive Daily Beast-Ipsos poll this weekend shows that 75 percent of Republicans know, despite what he’s said, that it was not true that “anyone who wants to get tested can get tested.” Only 25 percent of Republicans believe a vaccine will be available soon, which he’s promised. Notably, there wasn’t much divergence between Republicans and others on those questions, or whether or not the virus will just go away with warm weather, which few believe despite Trump’s talk about that.
But here’s what I think is the main reason, which no poll will pick up, that Trump’s numbers are so strong: Americans see so few examples of moral leadership anymore in any realm that they don’t even remember what it looks like. All we’ve had in the Trump era is a bunch of moral corner-cutting and worse. The “worse” category is obviously led by Trump himself, followed by Bill Barr, “Christian” right leaders, Mitch McConnell, Paul “Exquisite Leadership” Ryan, and all the rest of them. This category includes most business leaders too, whose basic attitude has been yeah, he’s a maniac, but look at that market.”
– The Daily Beast, Trump’s a Disaster. Here’s Why Americans Are Rallying Around His Coronavirus Response..
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World News is a poster project by Ihanktonwan Dakota artist David Bernie that promotes issues and stories worldwide.
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