Covid-19: in North Dakota, the death rate does not affect recklessness
Audio 01:20
North Dakota, a depopulated rural US state, has the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
Text by: RFI Follow
4 min
While more than twelve million Americans are infected with the coronavirus, it is the central states of the country that are seeing the number of contaminations increase the most rapidly.
Rural regions that had been relatively untouched in the spring of 2020 are now being hit hard.
This is the case of North Dakota which, according to a Harvard study, has the highest Covid-19 death rate in the world with more than one death per thousand inhabitants.
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With our special correspondent in Bismarck,
Anne Corpet
A table laughs in this restaurant in Bismarck, as impervious to reality: in this state, one in ten people is infected with the coronavirus.
Wearing a mask was finally made compulsory ten days ago, but its use is far from widespread.
"
It is my constitutional right
", loose this unmasked woman in the lobby of a hotel.
“
We cannot say that wearing the mask protects against Covid.
It's like throwing sand through a fence,
”assures, for his part, this man crossed in a gas station.
Exhausted health workers
But in his hospital overwhelmed by patients, Dr. David Field is exhausted.
"
This lack of concern for others is what has led us to these increasingly important figures and what causes us problems.
It's hard, it's hard to work so intensely every day, all day,
”he laments.
The entrance to the emergency department of Bismarck hospital, overwhelmed by patients.
© RFI / Anne Corpet
Jason Kerry, 36, has just been released from hospital where he spent three days in intensive care, and he has a message for the carefree: "
What matters is not how well you are, but how this virus is attacking you, and hopefully it won't affect your body like it affected mine.
"
In the United States, the country most bereaved by the epidemic with more than 257,000 dead, the virus continues to
grow exponentially
.
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