Rural Pennsylvania struggles to cope with coronavirus surge – NBC10 Philadelphia

When Jeff Burke was fed up with the corpse of a woman riding a garney, the phone rang in a rumbling of antiseptic solution. Another victim of the coronavirus, she will have to wait. On the phone, the nurse told the news: I need a body pickup.

Passing through the cremation oven and still hot from morning use, Burke changed from his plastic preservative apron to a tie and collared shirt. And a football commentator on Sunday cursed him on TV. His phone rang again when he prepared the hearse outside. The second body pickup needed at a nursing home on the outskirts of Lewistown. Coronavirus again.

“It’s just scary,” Burke said. “I don’t know if this kind of thing hits a different place, but it’s the worst.”

Relentless phone calls, long, continuous funerals, deaths, viruses, and sadness are part of Burke’s daily rhythm at Heller Hoenstin’s funeral home in the county seat of Miffrin County. Early November when things first started to get worse.

In April, the coronavirus occupied part of southeastern Pennsylvania, leaving western and central counties like Mifflin unaffected. However, in the first few weeks of December, a small county in central Pennsylvania suffered about three dozen COVID-19 deaths this month, the highest per capita coronavirus mortality rate in the Commonwealth.

When the first wave of coronavirus cases struck hubs in cities such as Philadelphia and New York City in the spring, local hospitals in Pennsylvania planned and waited. .. However, many residents have suffered from COVID-19 restrictions and have not yet seen the devastation directly. Wearing masks was often considered political, and mitigation efforts in the town were largely unaffected by the virus.

But now it has arrived.

Mifflin-led coronavirus mortality this month is increasing in most counties in Pennsylvania. In Blair County, where no deaths were reported due to the surge in early April, 52 people died in the first two weeks of December. Westmoreland’s total jumped six times from 15 to 93.

Since taking over the family funeral home business in a small central manufacturing district in Lewistown, Pennsylvania over a decade ago, 45-year-old Burke is no stranger to dying in Knuckle Deep by noon. But the situation is different, as the coronavirus has recently caused havoc in his rural hometown north of the Juniata River.

“It happened out of nowhere,” Burke said. His three funeral homes handled about 25 deaths in a typical November, compared to 61 last month. There were 40 people in the first few weeks of December.

“Three months ago,” he said. “I wasn’t really worried about what was happening right now. Our supplier told us to get ready. And you know, we get ready that way. But mentally, we didn’t have a clue that this would happen. “

Today, Burke said, he and his brother-in-law spend 30 minutes rearranging their bodies in the freezer behind to make space for more. The coroner will continue to call, providing a refrigerated truck to hold the corpse.

“We pray that we don’t have to bring it to God,” he said.

70 miles west of Lewistown, the Connectau Nason Medical Center is located between the church spire and the red barn in Roaring Spring, Blair County, accustomed to the stable rhythm of influenza and fractures. The hospital, about 55 miles south of State College, leases part of its land to local farmers.

“Soybeans are planted north of the hospital,” said hospital CEO Timothy Herclelord. “It’s southern corn.”

In the first two weeks of April, the county did not report death from COVID-19, but it did not last. Within the first two weeks of December, 52 people died there from the virus.

In 2019, the hospital had an average of about 14 nighttime patients per day before the coronavirus. Over the last two months, the average has skyrocketed to 30 people.

The first confirmed death in Blair County occurred on May 12, according to state data. By that day, Philadelphia had already endured the deaths of more than 1,250 people.

Still, across the state, hospitals rushed to prepare, cancel elective surgery, obtain as much PPE as possible, and look to telemedicine appointments rather than inpatient visits.

But as the pandemic raged elsewhere, as the 2020 elections approached, virus mitigation measures, wearing choking masks, and closing restaurants and gyms were questioned in politics.

“There are people here who don’t know who has the virus, and I think the media is blowing it off disproportionately,” said a medical staff member at Christmas in the COVID-19 ward. “Some people got it and recovered, and some were 85 years old who got it and died of lung problems.”

Mr. Sypes said his roadside business had recovered during the pandemic, but he had not made up for the money he had lost.

“Most of my business was catering, all of which was cancelled,” he said.

Sipes said he wasn’t wearing a mask.

“I can’t,” he said.

Dawn Green, a dental assistant living in Holidaysburg, said he had never left home without a mask since March. She was still infected with COVID-19 and headed to the Thanksgiving emergency room. She said she was still working on the effects of the virus.

Green, who voted for President Donald Trump, said he was dissatisfied with what the divisive and iconic masks were like in his area.

“Everyone thinks they are deprived of their freedom,” said Green, 43. “But believe me. If you get as sick as I do, you’ll wear a mask. You’ll get it. When you hear people downplay it, I’m very angry. I don’t want anyone to do this. “

Of the 150 deaths in Blair, 114 were in November and December.

In Westmoreland County (93 people died in the first week of December, 15 people died in early April), Governor Tom Wolf’s temporary restrictions on indoor dining and gatherings Attitudes towards the virus are equally mixed, as some officials oppose it. Still, Frank Kapoor, owner of Scottdale’s funeral home, said his view of the virus changed after people and their families were personally affected.

Some people said, “I know this is political, it will be gone after the election,” and I said, “No, I don’t think so … you Has been fooled by this, said Couple, the president of this COVID-19 Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association and the director of his family’s funeral home for the past 40 years.

He saw the virus settle in Harrisburg, Philadelphia, and New Jersey in the spring, but “I never imagined we would be bombarded.”

“The only thing I can tell people right now is to wear a mask and stay safe wherever I go,” he said.

Dr. Debra Bogen, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, recommended that residents emulate at a press conference last week by wearing the masks used in Philadelphia and other mitigation efforts (indoor dining and other mitigation efforts). (Restrictions on gatherings, etc.). In Allegheny County, which is now a hotbed of cases in the Commonwealth, 46 people died in the first week of April and 217 people died in the first week of December. This increase is mainly due to the expansion of the community. In Philadelphia, 173 people died in the first few weeks of December, down from 354 in early April.

Like many public health officials in the state, Bogen urged the county to stay firm to mitigate the spread while waiting for the vaccine’s turn, “the light of the end of the tunnel we all sought.” I called it. The number of these last months. “

At Conemaugh Nason, employees were receiving their first dose of the vaccine on Friday, and Harclerode said many were worried about the upcoming holidays and how it would affect patients. If COVID-positive patients showed similar timelines and symptoms, the hospital could have two people in one room.

“We tried to give them someone to talk to,” he said.

Mr. Herclelord said he believed that there was “COVID fatigue” in rural areas and eventually the inhabitants began to regroup. The hospital is expected to skyrocket after July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and after Christmas.

“Usually there are few patients and staff here at Christmas,” he said. “This year is not the case.”

Nine months after the pandemic and state-mandated coronavirus restrictions, the pain is always fresh, no matter how many times Kapr tells his sad family that only 10 people can attend an indoor funeral.

“I know most of my family, and I know them very well,” he said. “And it’s hard for me to sit on the other side of the desk and tell them that this is what we have to do. They say, what about our grandchildren? Hard.”

Burke, director of Mifflin’s funeral home, said the task was daunting and emotionally burdensome. And it’s most difficult when you have to cremate or preservative your friends and acquaintances from a hometown that everyone knows. However, despite the recent snowy feet, despite the stress, he has rested for only two days in the last two months and arrived at his office before the sun rose. He said he wouldn’t stop now, he rents it to the people of the autonomous region to give them the worthy see-off.

“We’re just trying to do the right thing,” he said. “We work hard to get a good night’s sleep.”

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Inquirer staff writers Justin McDaniel and Laura McCrystal contributed to the story.