I Traveled to Arkansas, the COVID Epicenter
Lily Kiaei
WESTCHESTER, NEW YORK—A few years ago, I moved from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Westchester, New York. I quickly noticed myriads of cultural, social, and political differences between the two states. Upon traveling back to Arkansas over the summer, I assumed my friends and the local government would be enforcing CDC protocols in a way similar to those of New York. I could not have been more wrong.
The first case of COVID-19 in New York was reported on March 1st. From that day on, the virus spread like wildfire. From March to May, New Yorkers took strict precautions to stay safe and remain healthy, and disobeying these precautions was severely frowned upon. Ordering groceries to one’s house, disinfecting every package, and wearing a mask at all times in public became normal and required. My mom, like most others, had a constant watch on the news and was always staying updated on the daily briefings with Governor Cuomo, as he discussed the statistics of the day. Small improvements in the number of cases were celebrated, and we waited anxiously until the day the numbers would plateau. New Yorkers’ efforts paid off as cases declined and the state slowly reopened. Now, New York is one of the few states that has kept COVID-19 cases as low as possible.
Halfway across the country, Arkansas reported its first COVID case on March 11th, but the state's cases remained consistently low until June. When New York gained control of rapidly-increasing cases, and they started to significantly lower, Arkansas’s swift case increase made it the new COVID epicenter in the United States. When New York was at its peak and Arkansas had very little cases, I booked a trip to spend some time with my sister and my home-friends. Although cases surged in Arkansas the week I was planning to visit, I decided not to cancel my trip.
As I took off from New York, I immediately felt a change of seriousness that surrounded the coronavirus. Around me on the plane, people were wearing their masks under their nose and ignoring requests to fix it. Upon spending time in Arkansas, I quickly realized the disregard people had for the virus. Gatherings of over 50 people and negligence of safety precautions was typical, even though Arkansas was averaging over six hundred new cases per day. Both teenagers and their parents unequivocally disregarded guidelines. When talking to my friends’ parents, they were convinced that New York was doing worse than Arkansas, and they were sure COVID did not pose a serious threat to their families.
Some Arkansans were simply ignoring the facts and prevalence of the coronavirus, but others were completely ignorant of the magnitude of the virus in their state. When talking to one of my friends before arriving in Arkansas, I brought up my concerns with coming--the rapid spread of COVID in Arkansas. I was astonished to hear that she was not even aware of the sudden rise of cases in her home state. She simply brushed it off and calmly said, “oh, we don't even care about the coronavirus here.” This is not the only time I heard someone say this. In fact, I heard this same sentence several times. The insensitivity of this phrase blew my mind.
Similarly, teens in Arkansas had no plans to spend their summer taking the necessary precautions, but they instead chose to ignore the surge cases and enjoy time with their friends, as they would if there were no pandemic.
Accustomed to the way New York handled the coronavirus, how Arkansas treated the coronavirus was striking. I felt unsafe and unprotected from the virus that has devastated our country. Upon returning to New York, I was relieved to be back in a state that valued listening to the science.