OHIO — Rural areas have seen far fewer coronavirus cases than cities. But that doesn’t mean less populated areas are immune to the greatest public health crisis in a century. And given the lack of medical facilities, the threat in rural areas is real.
The coronavirus will eventually reach places like Hardin County, Ohio, if it hasn’t already. Cases have been confirmed in counties north, east, and south of here. While Hardin County does have one hospital in Kenton, many rural areas do not. An outbreak would quickly overwhelm the whole region’s medical facilities.
Dean of the College of Pharmacy Steven Martin weighs in on the challenge.
“We have enough to cover what we do right now. The challenge is when we see an outbreak like COVID-19, that most likely will quickly overwhelm resources in rural settings,” he said.
To put things into perspective, people here would have to travel more than 20 miles to reach the nearest health center.
“They really don’t have many resources in that region. There’s no doctor in that area. There are no health centers in that area,” said Martin.
But for Paul Spahr, living in a rural setting during the coronavirus outbreak hasn’t made him worry about what he doesn’t have, but rather what he does.
“I was concerned until I found out it wasn’t an issue with dairy cattle. If we lost our dairy cattle, we’d be devastated. But it’s a serious thing. We understand that,” Spahr said.
Spahr is the owner of Spar Family Farms, which has been around for nearly 150 years. He’s in his 70's so he says he’s trying to take precautions during this COVID-19 outbreak.
“I’m trying to stay away from people, and I just put some hand sanitizer, and I’m trying to do everything I can,” said Spahr.
But he says there are still some things he has to go out in public for, like prescriptions. HealthWise Pharmacy Manager Katie Westgerdes says she’s working on that.
“So, not only taking the prescriptions out to the patient’s home, but actually sitting down and either having a conversation about those social determinants of health and taking a look at their living situation. Are things clean? Do they have food? We’ve actually expanded the delivery radius,” said Westgerdes.
And as cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, combating them in the rural areas of the state will be a team effort, according to Westgerdes.
“You can see the community is really drawing together and making sure that no one is forgotten. So, I really think that with the resources we have, we’ll get through it," she said.