"Much of the COVID-19 focus has been on major metropolitan areas, but rural areas of the United States are not free of exposure. As of March 1, 2021, there were a total of 28,266,649 cases and 50 7,154 deaths identified in counties, with 4,093 ,759 cases and 80,449 deaths (about 14.5 percent of cases and 15.9 percent of deaths) reported in non-metropolitan counties (data obtained from the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Data Repository*). But as many experts have pointed out, the rate of growth in cases is very different depending on location. Further, the stress on the health care delivery system is proportionate – a small number of cases creates stress for low capacity systems just as a large volume of cases creates stress for larger capacity systems."