Author: Neil Schoenherr

As the coronavirus spreads across the United States, larger cities, like New York and Seattle, are dealing with increasing numbers of infections and deaths daily. However, less populated rural areas are not immune from the disease, say two public health experts at Washington University in St. Louis, and controlling it in rural America presents a unique set of challenges.

In times of crisis, communities pull together. As history has shown, some do this better than others. In St. Louis, if our past is any indication, we have what it takes to dig in and do what is needed to pull through.

Tim McBride, the Bernard Becker Professor at Washington University in St. Louis’ Brown School and a leading health economist, said that the coronavirus outbreak will exacerbate problems in Missouri’s public health systems, which were already underfunded relative to most of the rest of the country, as well as issues facing low-income residents with challenges accessing medical care.

In Italy, physicians are making decisions no one should ever have to make. Tragically, New York appears headed in that direction. There is still time in Missouri. But each and every one of us must act. We have to take this seriously.

We must consider this coronavirus crisis as a wake-up call to prioritize equity and challenge ourselves to consider how to better serve historically underserved communities, says a public health expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the first week since COVID-19 was designated a pandemic, requests for food pantries skyrocketed across the United States.  Requests for home-delivered meals more than tripled in the same time period, said a Brown School researcher who tracks calls to the national 2-1-1 helpline.

The estimates of total cases and fatality rates are rapidly changing. There is no way to accurately account for how many people have the virus. Our best-case scenario during this pandemic is the prevention paradox.

As the Christian author Andy Crouch recently advised, one of the best ways to demonstrate that love now is by suspending physical gatherings, including worship services—for the sake of our neighbors.

As schools and entertainment venues close due to the coronavirus outbreak, many of us are seeing our social circles reduced quite significantly. An expert on social support at Washington University in St. Louis offers a few evidence-based suggestions for thriving during household isolation.

Some reforms are easier than others. Creating a defender general is an unusually simple one, with the potential to provide large benefits for millions of people, given that it involves establishing only an office with two dozen employees.