Masks, Misinformation, & Making Do: Appalachian Healthcare Workers & the COVID-19 Pandemic

The firsthand pandemic experiences of rural health-care providers—who were already burdened when COVID-19 hit—raise questions about the future of public health and health-care delivery. This volume comprises the COVID-19 pandemic experiences of Appalachian health-care workers, including frontline providers, administrators, and educators. The combined narrative reveals how governmental and corporate policies exacerbated the region’s injustices, stymied response efforts, and increased the death toll. First-person narratives from diverse perspectives recount the pandemic’s layered stresses, including: - the scramble for ventilators, masks, and other personal protective equipment - the neighbors, friends, and family members who flouted public-health mandates, convinced that COVID-19 was a hoax - the added burden the virus leveled on patients whose health was already compromised by cancer, diabetes, or addiction - the acute ways the pandemic’s arrival exacerbated interpersonal and systemic racism that Black and other health-care workers of color bear - not only the battle against the virus but also the growing suspicion and even physical abuse from patients convinced that doctors and nurses were trying to kill them