A rural Virginia community thought it could escape the pandemic but now has among the highest number of new cases in the state
In the brightest red corner of Virginia, where “Trump Digs Coal” signs dot the Appalachian mountain hollers, Jerry Estep first brushed off the coronavirus as an urban plague. Now he won’t leave home in this tiny town, population 980, without a mask.
“I was just going out like normal, but that’s not normal no more,” said Estep, 77, a retired florist with longtime health woes that could make a case of the coronavirus especially lethal. “I thought we were immune to it because we’re a small, rural area. But it has caught up.”
It took awhile for the global pandemic to wind its way through crooked mountain roads to the coalfields of far Southwest Virginia, but it’s spiking here now. The isolated region, which is trying to replace its dying coal economy with one based on outdoor tourism and higher education, is the only part of the state where case numbers have been climbing steadily all summer.
Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said on Tuesday that he is worried about the Southwest, where the average of 229 new cases each day rivals the 251 per day seen in far more populous Northern Virginia.
“This is especially concerning for a region where there are fewer hospitals,” he said.
The virus has taken hold in communities where up to 80 percent of voters backed Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton four years ago. The region’s cultural independence, and allegiance to a president who called virus warnings a “hoax” meant to undermine him, initially presented a challenge to health officials across the Southwest. [Continue reading…]