Only a month after the first COVID-19 death occurred in rural Matagorda County, reported cases have already spread to 198 counties as of April 21. And cases are rising quickly in rural areas with limited medical resources: in East Texas, where all of the state’s more than 20 rural hospital closures have occurred in the past seven years; in South Texas; and in the Panhandle, where many counties have no doctors and residents often have to travel hours for medical care.
Using state health data, we mapped the rate of COVID-19 cases per 100 licensed primary care physicians by county. Hover over a county to see the number of confirmed cases, the number of cases reported per 100,000 residents, the number of deaths, and the number of primary care physicians. Counties are colored in shades of red—darker red “hot spots” illustrate the highest rate of cases per 100 licensed doctors and counties that have no doctor at all. Generally, experts say COVID-19 has gone underreported and undiagnosed because of a shortage of tests. Many counties without primary care physicians have zero, one, or two confirmed COVID-19 cases, even though some are surrounded by counties reporting far more, indicating that even more rural residents may be going untested.
We’ll update this map as we learn about new cases.
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