Ainsworth Among Small Towns Preparing for Coronavirus

So far, most COVID-19 cases in Nebraska have been in the state’s larger population centers. But small towns and rural areas are getting ready for the impact of coronavirus, too. NET News visited Ainsworth, Nebraska last week, and reports on some of the special challenges smaller communities face.

Ainsworth, Nebraska is a town of about 1,600 people in north central Nebraska, about 250 miles northwest of Lincoln. Brown County, where Ainsworth is located, hasn’t had any confirmed COVID-19 cases yet. But people here are taking the threat seriously. John Werner is CEO of Brown County Hospital in Ainsworth.

“What we see here is a fair amount of anxiety about the unknown. So what we try to do is to come together as a community and as a community, as Ben Franklin would say you either hang together or you will surely hang separately and we prefer to hang together,” Werner said.

One factor affecting Ainsworth -- and many other rural communities -- is the age of the population. In the last census, nearly 25 percent of Ainsworth’s residents were 65 or older, compared to Nebraska as a whole, where that figure was 16 percent. Nationwide, it was only 13 percent.

Dr. Mel Campbell grew up in Ainsworth, and delivered a lot of the town’s residents as babies. Now 71, Campbell says his practice has changed. “My practice has aged along with me. My practice is largely older patients, but so is our patient population is mostly older patients,” Campbell said.

And, Campbell added, that puts them at higher risk.

“Patients over 70 years old have a 15% mortality rate with the COVID virus, and much of our population is much older than that. So we have a very vulnerable population because of their age,” he said.

Campbell spent some time recently calling at-risk patients.

“I had one lady, when I told her I was advising her to stay home, she said ‘I have no choice. My children have me locked in the house,’ he recalled.

Campbell said most of the older population seems to be doing a good job with social distancing, although he’s not sure younger people are doing as well.

That distancing is a concern for Ann Fiala, administrator at Ainsworth’s Cottonwood Villa assisted living center. Fiala said she shut the facility to visitors from outside the area about four weeks ago, and even to local family members last week. She said some of the families were a little put out, but basically understood the need to keep out the virus.

“That's been a hard decision to make. Because if we do get it inside the building, it could be the last time. I mean, I don't know how that's all gonna work. I'm fully aware of what I'm asking these families to give up -- and the residents,” she said.

Fiala said she made the decision based on her experience at Cottonwood over the last 20 years.

“Every year, the influenza that comes down the hallway. Every year the stomach flu comes down the hallway. And it doesn't just pick one or two doors to stop at. It flows like a river, and everybody gets sick. I've lost a couple to influenza over the years -- to death. And the stomach flu has taken residents and put ‘em in higher care facilities because it's depleted ‘em so bad. And COVID is that much worse,” she said.

But the restrictions mean people who used to travel to get injections for macular degeneration, to avoid losing their eyesight, can’t do that now. Fiala says she set one such patient up to video chat with her daughter.

“She couldn't exactly see her daughter, but the mental knowledge of knowing that the daughter was right there in front of her face to face -- they ended up having a great conversation and she was smiling and teary-eyed at the end of course. But it just is --it's a beautiful thing

to watch, but it's also very hard on the heart,” she said.

And Fiala said the center is doing other things to try and keep residents’ spirits up.

“We took them out for van rides yesterday just to get them outside in the sunshine but seeing the newborn calves and lambs in the area and the green grass coming up, but they're missing their people,” she said.

Like many people in small towns, Fiala wears more than one hat – she’s also director of the Brown County Ambulance Service. That’s a service people in town would depend on if they got sick enough to have to be transferred to a larger hospital. But she says with some ambulance crew members themselves in the vulnerable age group, that may not be possible.

“We will do our best to put a crew together. It depends on our resources at the time. If any one or two of us get exposed to a COVID case and need to go into quarantine that takes us down, we would not be able to do transfers,” she said.

Back at Brown County Hospital, Dr. Campbell echoes that concern, anticipating cases of COVID-19.

“If the peak occurs as they're expecting it to, we may not be able to transfer any patients anywhere,” he said.

Asked what the hospital would do in that case, Campbell replied simply “The best we can.”

Still, hospital CEO John Werner says, they’re preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best, as the number of cases increases.

“When we're talking about where are we at as a state -- we haven't hit that peak. So we have to therefore assume that it's going to get worse before it gets better. So we are preparing for that.”

“And we're going to get through this,” Werner said.

NET News and our Harvest Public Media partners are reporting as part of the national “America Amplified: Election 2020” project that aims to listen to and amplify the voices of those in diverse communities across the nation. Learn more at americaamplified.org and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.