Small Towns Won’t Know They’re Infected Until It’s Too Late

Here in the plague, we are living a story that is global and yet intensely local. While all of us get reams of reporting about national and international COVID-19 trends, most of us get little or no reporting about what’s happening in the communities where we actually live.

Local news has largely disappeared—the phenomenon of news deserts is by now well known. And yet never has the need for local information been greater. The big news can be completely at odds with the small news—and for individuals, it’s the small news that matters most. The crucial virus data is hyper-local. In my neighborhood, hidden within a larger