New US coronavirus hotspots appear in Republican heartlands

New coronavirus hotspots are emerging in Republican heartland communities across multiple states, contradicting Donald Trump’s claims that infection rates are declining across the nation.

At a fraught press briefing on Monday, the president declared: “All throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly.”

Yet county-specific figures show a surge in infection rates in towns and rural communities in red states such as Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky and North and South Dakota, according to data tracking by the New York Times.

Trump’s claim is also contradicted by data used by the White House’s own pandemic taskforce to track new and emerging hotspots.

In a 7 May report, obtained by NBC News, the list of top 10 surge areas included Nashville, Tennessee; Des Moines, Iowa; Amarillo, Texas; Racine, Wisconsin; Garden City, Kansas, and Central City, Kentucky – a predominantly white town of 6,000 people which saw a 650% week-on-week increase. Muhlenberg county, where Central City is located, has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2004, with Trump winning 72% of votes in 2016 – the biggest ever victory for the party.

The geographical spread of new hotspots suggest that the virus is advancing quickly outside major coastal towns and cities such as New York, Newark and Seattle where infection rates are now plateauing or dipping.

Many of the new emerging hotspots, both rural and urban, are in states where governors refused to issue stay-at-home orders, or are following Trump’s advice to relax lockdown restrictions despite public health warnings about the dangers of doing so too soon.

There are more than 1.3 million cases of coronavirus in the US, including more than 81,000 deaths – by far the highest number in the world. There are only 16 states, plus Puerto Rico and Guam, where the number of new confirmed cases is on the decline.

In Nebraska, while statewide new cases have plateaued but testing remains limited, four counties which have been Republican strongholds for decades are now listed among the country’s worst hotspots. Dakota county, where about 84% of the 20,000 habitants are white, has an infection rate of 7,147 per 100,000 – the second-highest per-capita rate in the US. The governor of Nebraska, where Trump won almost 59% of the vote in 2016, is among eight who never issued statewide stay-at-home orders.

The meatpacking industry is linked to several emerging hotspots in the Texas panhandle, a semi-rural region consisting of the 26 northernmost counties, where Trump won 79.9% of the vote in 2016 and his party dominates every level of government.

Moore county has by far the highest infection rate in Texas, with 2,413 cases per 100,000 as of Tuesday. Here, the death rate is 41 per 100,000 people – 10 times higher than the state average.

Moore county is home to the giant Brazilian-owned JSB meatpacking plant, which employs mostly Hispanic and immigrant workers, many of whom are bussed in on company shuttles from nearby towns including Amarillo. The outbreak in Potter county, which is home to Amarillo, has been traced to meatpacking plants. Here, there were 975 cases per 100,000 on Tuesday – the second-worst rate in Texas and more than six times the state average.

Last week in a Facebook video, the Amarillo mayor, Ginger Nelson, said Governor Greg Abbott told her it was best for Amarillo residents to stay indoors despite his decision to ease statewide restrictions.