Although the majority of cases of the coronavirus have occurred in bigger cities, rural areas aren’t immune. In fact, infectious disease experts in some of those communities are reporting a steady increase in cases and predict a long, sustained outbreak for weeks and maybe months.

That was the message from speakers on an online media briefing hosted by the Infectious Disease Society of America this week, which featured a discussion about the coronavirus in rural America.

“You might think those [rural] communities have been spared from this disease, but they haven’t,” said Andrew Pavia, chief of the division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Utah School of Medicine. “We’re going to see a different epidemiology in rural states without the very graphic high peak that you see in cities. We’re probably going to see a long, sustained outbreak, which means we’re probably going to be fighting this for weeks and months to come,” he said.

There are a multitude of reasons why the rural communities aren’t out of the woods and may, indeed, suffer more as the coronavirus gets a stranglehold: Rural communities tend to be more close-knit and often congregate for events; residents in these rural communities are more apt to work in industries, such as meat packing, where working side by side in a warehouse-type atmosphere is the norm; and the resources for sick people are fewer.

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