rural health

Medical services in small Northwest towns are stretched to the limit with shortages of qualified workers and PPE, CARES Act funds running out and hospitals at or near capacity.

As COVID-19 cases increase, many rural communities, places which were largely spared during the early months of the pandemic, are now contending with a spike in infections and hospitalizations.

The federal loans were meant to help hospitals survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet they're coming due now — at a time when many rural hospitals are still desperate for help.

Rural Carthage, Mo., is home to a growing community of Latin American immigrants. Language barriers and economic stress have made it harder to slow the spread of COVID-19.

As the coronavirus shut down homeless shelters in Southern Oregon, civic leaders told those in need to relocate to the nearby woods. Now sheriff's deputies are relocating them before fire season.

Small-town hospitals were already closing at an alarming rate before COVID-19, but now the trend appears to be accelerating just as the disease arrives in rural America.

About half of U.S. rural hospitals operate in the red on a good day. Now facing a pandemic, hospital CEOs warn that, without federal help, their doors may close when the community most needs them.

The coronavirus will likely take longer to reach remote rural communities but may be more devastating. Though there may not be public transit or big crowds, rural areas are vulnerable in other ways.

Fewer than a third of the 220 counties deemed by the federal government as vulnerable to similar outbreaks have active syringe exchange programs which can stop the spread of the infection.