Rural America has particular risks to coronavirus - in the way they respond (or, don't respond) to what is happening outside their own communities. It's a place where ignoring the coasts, can cause massive devastation - much worse than NYC.

Here's how, with math.

The virus came to Rural America later than the higher population density - as one would expect from a communicable illness. Rural America holds 19% of the US population (about 66M): if you think of it as its own state, it's the largest state in the US. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/08/us/coronavirus-rural-america-cases.html

But they don't see themselves as one big state; they don't see themselves as connected to NY City, or California; they each see themselves as connected to their own little town - and maybe to the US of A, and to Trump. They are definitely a Red State. They are Fox Nation.

In Rural America, their cities are small - the average size of a local jurisdiction is about 6200 people.

Therein lies a massive weakness, when it comes to fighting covid19.

That weakness is psychology: most Americans did not pay attention to covid19, while it was killing thousands in China. Why? Bc they're "not us" - it's "over there" -- it's not an immediate threat.

This is a wrongheaded approach; as far as coronavirus is concerned, we're meat.

It is only when the infections, and deaths, began, that Americans understood it can kill us too. It had invaded "our population".

That's probably the same psychology people living in towns of 6K or 10K have - except "our population" is, for them, a town of 6K, or 10K.

That means, Rural Americans will only react - by obeying "shelter in place" orders through their own compliance - when death comes to their own town. Someone in their town will have to die, before they take action.

How? Based on measurements from China and Italy, covid19 symptoms appear about +6 days after infection; and death comes at about +25 days.

So in Rural America, it will take about 25 days after the first infection in their hometown, for the first person there to die.

How many people will be infected in the meantime? A fatality rate of 1%, means that 100 people were infected before the first person to die, was; but they were all infected 25+ days ago. And infections continued in the meantime, exponentially growing, on a 4.8 day timescale.

Over 25 days, those 100 infections in their hometown will grow to N=100 exp(25 days/4.8 days) = 1K infections.

So for a rural hometown of 6K people - pretty much everyone will be infected, by the time the first death occurs.

Even in a huge rural town -- 36K people -- half the people will be infected with coronavirus, before the 1st death in that town occurs and people see that now "it's here", and so begin to obey "shelter in place" rules.

By then, it's too late. The infections are done.

By not paying attention to coronavirus until the first deaths happen "to them", Rural Town populations will be completely run through with infections, before they see their first fatality, and so react.

What information sources, are the primary information sources people in Rural America pay attention to, react to? Without local newspapers, which have largely collapsed, is it talk radio, local tv news, Fox Nation? Have they turned to CNN, NYTimes? https://twitter.com/TheMil10/status/1250064470988197888