PAGES

Monday, March 30, 2020

Coronavirus slams rural areas that depend on skiing and hiking; some towns ask summer residents to stay away

Though the coronavirus pandemic has hit urban areas the hardest, rural cases are rising, especially in rural tourist meccas. Counties that have yet to report any coronavirus cases are mostly rural and poor, The Associated Press reports.

"Rural counties in Colorado, Utah and Idaho, where hordes of visitors flock each year to ski or hike, are ... experiencing some of the highest rates of coronavirus cases per capita in the nation, threatening to overwhelm local hospitals and challenging perceptions of the virus’ reach," Rick Jervis, Deborah Berry and Matt Wynn report for USA Today. "Four counties – Blaine County, Idaho; Summit County, Utah; and Eagle County and Gunnison County, Colorado – lead the nation in per-capita rates of confirmed cases, outside New York state and Louisiana, according to a USA Today analysis of coronavirus cases across the country." The analysis used numbers through March 26.

Many ski resorts nationwide shut down in mid-March after tourists brought the virus to town. But it's not just tourists being asked to stay home. Some small communities whose economies depend on an influx of summer residents are asking them to stay away.

"As the coronavirus quickly spreads across the nation’s urban centers, local leaders in some rural areas — who prize their independent, conservative values that tend toward a live-and-let-live attitude — are taking actions that contradict their ethos in order to keep the virus away," Dionne Searcey reports for The New York Times. "Some officials have anguished over their actions, chiefly because they go against the beliefs of their communities. In New York’s Catskills region, residents still complain about government moves decades ago to seize land surrounding a key watershed. Yet fearful of the virus’s spread, a handful of rural counties have issued bluntly worded orders for second homeowners to stay away."

In Florida, the opposite is happening. Snowbirds ready to migrate back north during warmer weather are being warned to stay put, for fear that they might spread the virus. Such efforts have been largely unsuccessful, Politico reports.

No comments:

Post a Comment