COVID-19 threatens to rip apart Southern states in a way that isn't happening anywhere else
On Wednesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp finally issued a stay-at-home order for his state after resisting it for weeks. Kemp’s stated reason was one part amusing, three parts terrifying: he claimed that he had just learned that some people with COVID-19 can be asymptomatic, a fact that has been clear since January. Meanwhile, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has still not provided any statewide guidance, leaving such decisions to cities and counties. The same thing applies in Alabama, where Republican Gov. Kay Ivey sniffed that her state is “not California” and declared that she’s not ready to take an action that might hurt the economy. In South Carolina, Republican Gov. Henry McMaster has left even state legislators and Republican officials frustrated by his unwillingness to do more than issue recommendations without any force of law. And Arkansas now enjoys a position that may be unique in the nation: Not only has Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson refused to set any level of suppression across the state, but there are also no city or county stay-at-home orders. Arkansas is open for business. And virus transmission.
But it’s not just the failure of red-state Republicans that is putting the Southern states in the crosshairs for the next wave of novel coronavirus infections. Everything from Fox News to Walmart is aligned against these states … and it’s all going to bring a horrific cost.
On Thursday, The New York Times published a set of maps to show where Americans are really turning the idea of “social distancing” into a reduction in travel. The first of these maps shows that there are counties even within states in the West and Midwest where stay-at-home orders haven’t been all that effective when it comes to reducing miles traveled. But then again, those are rural counties. When people are ordered to stay at home except for vital services, like food, and the longest trips people make are already the weekly jaunt to a grocery store that may be 30 miles away, it’s not surprising that the distance traveled hasn’t been all that greatly reduced. In some of the most rural western counties, the distances recorded may even be people moving around their own properties when it comes to those involved in agriculture.
But the second map in the Times set paints a blood-red swatch across the South, not in terms of their vote, but in terms of how far people are traveling on a raw miles basis. In much of the nation, even in the most rural portions of the North and West, the average distance traveled is less than two miles a day. In other counties, the distance traveled has fallen below two miles as social distancing has been implemented. But in most of the South—and not just the rural South—the average distance traveled is still above two miles. Americans in the South are getting out, getting in their cars, and traveling miles. Every day.
Read more: https://dailysoundandfury.com/covid-19-threatens-to-rip-apart-southern-states-in-a-way-that-isnt-happening-anywhere-else/
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