Hot spots erupt in farm belt states where governors insist lockdowns aren't needed

[swag]

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/15/coronavirus-hot-spots-farm-belt-189272?fbclid=IwAR2R-BT-h-K9JAFAFmLJQ9zMEq0RPrDKno_Q-8Nm5PO7W6bVXJY4AhWFqUQ

By ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN, DAN GOLDBERG and NOLAN D. MCCASKILL
04/15/2020 08:02 PM EDT


The only hospital in Grand Island, Neb., is full. The mayor has asked for a statewide stay-at-home order that the GOP governor insists isn’t needed. More than one-third of those tested for coronavirus in the surrounding county are positive — and there aren’t enough tests to go around.

Grand Island is the fourth-biggest city in a state President Donald Trump and his top health officials repeatedly name check for keeping the virus at bay without the strict lockdowns 42 other states have imposed.

Except that new cases there and in Iowa, South Dakota and other parts of the heartland are starting to spike, raising concern about new hot spots that could quash Trump’s push to reopen the economy and extend the public health crisis well into the summer.

Trump and red state governors for weeks have fairly bragged about how large parts of the farm belt have escaped the ravages of the virus without the enforced shelter-in-place policies common on both coasts. It’s still unclear whether the states actually “flattened the curve,” or if the virus just reached there later. But now, cases are erupting, threatening a local population that doesn’t always have easy access to the same health care as more urban areas. And the outbreaks are striking the heart of the nation’s farming and meatpacking industry, potentially disrupting the national distribution of food as meat processing plants close down and truckers who move food across the country are sidelined by illness.

. . . more

[bdamomma]

1. no one

is immune.

[wcmagumba]

2. Just found out that the nursing home in my tiny red state town...

just outside of Wichita KS, nothing but farmers, former air craft workers and military, has 1 death and a number of infected...three blocks from my apt and the local grocery where I shop...but dump wants to "open it up" cause its nothing,
going away...while he and all the repugs are really saying "die, old people, die"... I'm in that senior crowd...makes me so proud to be a murcan...

[Tommymac]

3. But But But Those States Have Lots of Space!!!

Plenty of room to social distance don't ya know.

[Calculating]

4. Well we can't exactly shut down farming and food processing

If we do that we're gonna have issues that make the current stuff look like a walk in the park.

[UpInArms]

5. Am sitting right in the middle of this ...

And they are not taking it seriously...

Bad shit is going to happen

[coti]

6. Hence....

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213293962

[SamBob]

7. Isn't it

Better to be safe than sorry?
He would possibly make more money and look better by taking those measures, but I guess with him bashing the media (even Fox news now) he just wants to make sure his followers stop reading/watching the news except when he gets on TV... Something. I just don't get where everyone's common sense went off to.