Virus cases rise in heartland, home to anti-mask sentiment
MISSION, Kan. — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.
Meanwhile, confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. hit another milestone — 7 million — according to the count kept by JohnsHopkins University, though the real number of infections is believed to be much higher.
The spike across the Midwest as well as parts of the West has set off alarms at hospitals, schools and colleges.
Wisconsin is averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day over the last week, compared with 675 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest level since the outbreak took hold in the U.S. in March.
Utah has seen its average daily case count more than double from threeweeks earlier. Oklahomaand Missouri are regularly recording 1,000 newcases a day, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a staunch opponent of mask rules, tested positive this week. Kansas andIowa are also witnessing a spike in cases. And South Dakota and Idaho are seeing sky-high rates of tests coming back positive.
“Whatwe’re seeing is the newer hot spots rise over the course of the last several weeks, predominantly in the Upper Midwest,” said
Thomas Tsai, a professor at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.
The U.S. is averaging more than 40,000 new confirmed cases a day. While that number is dramatically lower than thepeak of nearly 70,000 over the summer, the numbers are worrisome nonetheless. The nation’s death toll eclipsed 200,000 this week, the highest in the world.
In the Midwest, the virus is now landing squarely in places where there is strong resistance to masks andgovernors have beenreluctant to require face coverings.
In Springfield, Mo., hospitals are starting to fill upwith COVID-19 patients and the city has seen a big spike in deaths over the past month.
Amelia Montgomery, a nurse working in the COVID unit at Cox
South Hospital in Springfield, describes a maddening routine where family members of sick patients call up medical staff on the phone on a daily basis and question whether their loved ones truly have the virus and and the veracity of positive test results.
“We know what COVID looks like now after six months of dealing with it,” Montgomery said. “It is like beating your head against a brick wall when youare constantly having patients, family members of these patients and the community argue so intensely that it is not real or we are treating it in the wrong way.”
Elsewhere around the country, Florida’s Republican governor lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Friday and all but set aside local mask ordinances, a move attacked by Democrats as hasty. “We’re not closing anything going forward,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said.
The governor, who has resisted making mask-wearing mandatory statewide, also said he will stop cities and counties from collecting fines from people who don’t cover their faces, virtually nullifying local mask ordinances.
Florida was a major hot spot over the summer, and the death toll there stands at nearly 14,000. Deaths are running at over 100 a day, and newly confirmed infections at about 2,700 a day.
And in Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam announced he and his wife have tested positive, though he said he has no symptoms.