As the COVID-19 pandemic rages through the United States, primarily in the large urban regions, more than one-third of the counties in the US have yet to declare even just one positive result for the said virus. This was presented by the Associated Press through an analysis.
Relatively, data that the Johns Hopkins University compiled shows that over a thousand counties don't have any confirmed COVID-19 case, out of 3,142 counties across the nation. Notably, of these counties that don't have positive tests, 85 percent are in rural or the so-called "poor" areas, from largely white communities in the Great Plains and Appalachia to the majority Native and Hispanic American stretches of American Southwest that commonly have only a few everyday contacts with people who can possibly contribute to the transmission of the virus.
Simultaneously, counties that don't have positive COVID-19 tests have a higher average age and a higher percentage of people who are above 60 years old, the most susceptible to severe impacts of the said infection, and far lesser intensive care beds in case they fall ill.
Plus, the median household wage is also lower, possibly limiting options for health care. Essentially, these counties' demographics hold foremost effects as the Trump administration creates guidelines for the rating of counties according to the risk of the infection that spreads, making the officials empowered in revising the social distancing guidelines "that have sent so much of the economy of the US into freefall."
Opportunity Seen in Slowing the Spread of COVID-19
Infectious disease experts have seen a great opportunity to slow the spread of COVID-19 in the country's remote areas, benefiting from the 'natural' isolation and social distancing, should initial cases are identified and confirmed, and aggressively quarantined.
This opportunity can buy time for rural health care networks to provide robust care, not to mention reduce mortality. However, there is an apprehension too, that intermittent COVID-19 testing could be concealing outbreaks that could be left and remain unattended, might overpower health networks in rural areas.
According to an epidemiology professor at the University of California, Davis, Christine K. Johnson, people from the rural areas "will be later to get the infection," adding, they will also have their epidemics later. However, the professor continued, she doesn't think these people would be protected as there's no place in the US that's isolated.
More so, counties with confirmed zero-cases for COVID-19, Professor Johnson said, "could raise a red flag for insufficient testing."
Two of the Counties without Confirmed COVID-19 Case
Remarkably, in New Mexico, where there are two million residents spanning an area, the size the same as Italy's, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has aggressively moved to contain the spread of COVID-19, along with a school shutdown and prohibition of gatherings of more than five people nationwide.
In addition, almost 50 percent of the 33 counties of the state are free of any COVID-19 cases. Incidentally, New Mexico one of the top five states in COVID-19 testing per capita although some of some virus-free counties have yet to be equipped with specialized sites for testing beyond samplings by several clinics and laboratories.
Wayne Johnson, Torrance County Manager, explained that plans are currently being arranged for the first three devoted testing sites for COVID-19, in what's considered as "the high-desert county of 15,000 residents" spanning an area, thrice Rode Island's size.
Meanwhile, stay-at-home order statewide is keeping a lot of residents from commuting to their offices in the neighboring Bernalillo County, the US's epicenter for the pandemic with 93 confirmed cases of the state government's tally of more than 200 as of last weekend. Johnson added they don't have any testing sites open and a portion of that, he continued, is that they don't have any need for the COVID-19 test yet.
Nevertheless, the county manager said, he is still worried that the pandemic could overwhelm the only local medical clinic they have in the county, as well as its emergency medical technicians' all-volunteer corps.
