Rural counties & Covid

When I was a young reporter in Seneca County, NY, the county coroner was an elected official who also wrote for the Syracuse paper. Guess who got all the scoops on unnatural deaths?

It may come as a surprise to many that there are still more counties with elected coroners than with professional medical examiners. Coroners don’t have to be doctors, and many are not.

According to the New York State Association of Counties, 35 of the state’s 62 counties have coroners, while 20 have medical examiners. A 2018 report by the association said there were 114 elected coroners across the state. Many, untrained in medical procedures, struggle with a lack of outside autopsy and toxicology resources. The state faces a shortage of pathologists and local hospitals have increased their fees.

All of which makes me suspect that Covid deaths are vastly underreported in New York’s rural areas.

Underreporting spawns lack of awareness, and lack of awareness – combined with political conservativism in these regions – means lower vaccination rates.

The map below shows vaccinations by county, with darker blue indicating higher rates and lighter blue showing lower rates. Not surprisingly, most of the dark-blue counties are metro areas, such as New York City, Albany, Rochester and Buffalo. Ithaca (Tompkins County) certainly stands out, as does Hamilton County, which led an intensive, extremely successful vaccination campaign.

For a full, updated report, see the state’s Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker.