Coping with COVID: Missouri’s rural southwest shows big spike in new cases

A recent spike in Missouri’s COVID-19 cases over the last few days show that reportedly half of the new cases from over the weekend have come from McDonald County, a rural county in Missouri’s southwestern corner, according to Fox 4 News.

The new spike has contributed to creating a record increase in cases in the state.

The McDonald County Health Department announced 235 new cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, bringing its total to 473. Though the county has just 23,000 residents, only six counties and the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City have confirmed more cases in Missouri, according to reporting by Fox 4 News.

The big increase is partially due to testing at two poultry plants, one operated by Tyson Foods in Noel and the other operated by Simmons Foods in Southwest City, McDonald County Health Department Director Paige Behm said.

However, Behm says these new cases extend beyond workers at the two plants.

The big increase is, “very concerning, but I think it’s important that we’ve done a lot of testing to identify, isolate and contact trace so we can kind of see what’s going on in the community,” Behm said to Fox 4. “But it’s more widespread than we realized.”

Missouri’s health director, Randall Williams, said last week that all 1,400 workers at the Tyson plant were being testing. Missouri Health Department spokeswoman Lisa Cox said the test results are expected to be released Tuesday.