• Home
  • Blogs
  • Rural COVID-19 relief summary as of April 2021

Rural COVID-19 relief summary as of April 2021


Throughout the fall and winter, rural America was disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. At the height of the pandemic more than 94 percent of nonmetropolitan counties were considered ‘red-zone’ counties, those with a new COVID-19 infection rate of 100 or more per 100,000 residents per week.

Unfortunately, while rural America was addressing the pandemic head-on, relief stalled. From July until December 2020, rural providers were facing a disproportionate share of COVID-19 cases without relief equitable to what their urban counterparts were afforded earlier in the pandemic.

The COVID-19 relief packages passed in December 2020 and March 2021 were helpful to rural
providers, but NRHA strongly believes more relief is needed.

This document highlights NRHA’s priorities for COVID-19 relief for rural health care and serves as a
guidepost for legislative and administrative action in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additionally, NRHA recently released the association's fiscal year 2022 appropriations requests and several more advocacy-related documents available on NRHA's advocacy page.

This website uses cookies. By accepting the use of cookies, this message will close and you will receive the optimal website experience. For more information on our cookie policy, please visit our Privacy Policy