Thread by @nytimes

The coronavirus outbreak is spreading to rural America, where 8.6 million people live at least a half-hour’s drive to the nearest hospital and where even small outbreaks could overwhelm medical resources.
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In large swaths of the U.S., people have a hard time reaching a hospital that offers the inpatient care needed to treat the coronavirus. And people are less likely to seek health care at all when they need to travel farther to get it, research shows.
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Here's where the 8.6 million people in the U.S. who are at least 30 minutes from a hospital live. These rural populations tend to:
—Be older
—Have higher rates of underlying health conditions
—Be most at risk from the coronavirus
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In Arizona alone, about a half-million people live at least 30 minutes from a hospital. Access is especially difficult in Native American tribal areas, like the Navajo Nation, where coronavirus cases are growing quickly. nyti.ms/3bFrFQx

In Florida, hospital access is most limited in the farm towns of the panhandle and north of the Everglades.

For many farmworkers, social distancing is impractical. “The buses they ride on to go to the farms are packed,” one farmworker advocate said. nyti.ms/3bFrFQx

Washington State is facing a different kind of problem: empty hospital beds.

People with chronic conditions are avoiding hospitals, and elective surgeries have been canceled, leaving vulnerable rural hospitals unable to earn money. nyti.ms/3bFrFQx

In one corner of rural West Virginia and Ohio, a for-profit company bought three struggling hospitals. They’ve all shut down, leaving the area with 530 fewer hospital beds. “This entire community is stranded,” one resident said.
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As the coronavirus outbreak spreads, more Americans who live far from a hospital are increasingly likely to need one. As one researcher on health care access put it: "I would imagine things are only going to get worse, not better."
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