MEMPHIS, Tennessee —
In Tuesday's Ransom Note: COVID-19 and the South.
It's pretty discouraging thinking about how many more weeks, if not months, we're going to be living like this. But new data from a researcher with Ole Miss suggests why Southerners are more vulnerable than other Americans.
First, in many of our small towns, young people have moved away, leaving an elderly population with health problems that makes them more susceptible such as diabetes and respiratory disease. Despite being disproportionately unhealthy, we have fewer rural hospitals and clinics to care for folks if they get sick. We're also not getting tested at the same rate.
Even southern states aren't equal. Today, for the first time, Mississippi's death count from coronavirus topped Tennessee's, yet the Magnolia State has less than half the number of people. The systemic issues behind these findings won't be reversed right away, but they show us we need to take this a day at a time and not re-open too soon, no matter how tired we are of this new normal.