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FILE - In this Oct. 13, 2006, file photo, whale bones from past hunts sit in the village Point Hope, Alaska. The pandemic's toll in big U.S. cities like New York, Seattle and San Francisco has dominated headlines, but enormous swaths of rural America from coastal Georgia to the frozen reaches of Alaska are also deeply affected by the rapid spread of the new coronavirus. In Alaska's Point Hope, an Inupiat whaling village at the edge of the Arctic Ocean nearly 700 miles north of Anchorage, tribal leaders held a meeting this week to prepare and wrestled with whether or not to ban air travel into town. The state's limited road system doesn't reach the town of 900 people, which relies on planes for much of its connection to the outside world. (AP Photo/Al Grillo, File)

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Rural America watches pandemic erupt in cities as fear grows
March 25, 2020 2:38 p.m.

Rural America watches pandemic erupt in cities as fear grows

DUFUR, Ore. (AP) — The social distancing rules repeated like a mantra in America's urban centers, where the coronavirus is spreading exponentially, might seem silly in wide-open places where neighbors live miles apart and “working from home” means another day spent branding calves or driving a tractor alone through a field.