Pulling the bandaids off in rural America

What rural communities lack in infrastructure is becoming very clear to elected leaders at all levels. The question that must be answered is whether those needs will be addressed and when.

The lack of fast affordable internet service in rural communities is now holding back teachers, students, and parents. Teachers don’t have access to broadband in order to log on and hold sessions with students. Students often don’t have internet access or a computer.

If you are looking for some good stocks to consider, this might be a good time to invest in the paper industry. Schools are making printed packets of work for families because online education in rural America isn’t an option.

Rural communities don’t have the luxury of Instacart and similar shopping and delivery services. There is no option to have groceries delivered to your front door. If driving to a store is the only option for rural households, the urge to stock up beyond a week’s worth of groceries is understandable when frequently used items are on store shelves.

Businesses trying to shift to online work face the same challenges as schools. A technology company I have relied on emailed customers two weeks ago offering not only online platforms for remote work, but refurbished laptops for employees to use while they work from home. The question remains whether there is internet access at the employee’s home.

While social media and news outlets fill space with ideas for streaming movies and television programs, rural America remains on the sidelines. There is no streaming of entertainment options without high speed internet. Libraries are closed and ball fields are vacant. Choices are so limited now.

The bandaids offered to rural America have been pulled off. Lessons are being taught about how we can better serve rural communities across our country. If the lack of resources in rural America are not addressed when we are able to paddle less frantically, the failure of elected leaders to respond nimbly and effectively should direct every voter’s choices.

Forecast for Covid-19 in the United States

Covid-19 forecast from University of Massachusetts Amherst,
March 11, 2020

Real data and solid research matter. Read it. Share it. Use it. The information below is taken directly from the link in this post.

Results from Survey 4 (administered March 9-10, 2020)

  1. Experts predict a four-fold rise in reported cases in the US over the next week. They predict 1819 total cases (80% uncertainty interval: 823-6204 cases) of COVID-19 will be reported by the CDC on Monday March 16th, more than 4 times the CDC reported number of cases as of Monday, March 9th.
  2. The majority of experts (20/21, 95%) expect COVID-19 will reach community-level spread in the US

  3. Experts expect that community-level spread will occur in the US within 3 weeks (80% uncertainty interval: 0-10 weeks).

  4. Experts anticipate 44 US states will report cases of COVID-19 within one week (80% uncertainty interval: 39-48 states).

  5. Experts believe that only 13% (80% uncertainty interval: 4-30%) of all COVID-19 infections (symptomatic and asymptomatic) in the US were reported to the CDC as of Monday, March 9th.

This implies that as of the beginning of this week there were between 1410 and 10575 undiagnosed infections with COVID-19 in the US. 6. Experts believe that nationwide hospitalizations for COVID-19 will peak in May. 7.

The above results include answers from 21 experts.

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