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“I would imagine things are only going to get worse, not better,” Dr. Without a hospital nearby, those who are sick may not seek care at all, leaving them to suffer and to risk spreading the infection to others.īut if a large outbreak does occur and too many people need treatment, rural hospitals could easily be overwhelmed and be forced to send patients traveling even farther from their homes for care. Paul Delamater, a researcher on health care access at the University of North Carolina.Īnd that’s under normal circumstances. “We already know that people in rural regions who are located farther from health care use care less and generally have worse outcomes,” said Dr. Research shows people are less likely to seek health care, even emergency care, when they need to travel farther to get it, especially when they are more than about 30 minutes from a hospital.
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beds are in short supply - even a relatively small outbreak there could overwhelm medical resources, with potentially grim consequences for public health. That poses challenges for communities where hospitals are scarce and I.C.U. As the coronavirus outbreak spreads into rural parts of the United States, more people who live far from a hospital are increasingly likely to need one.