The newest development for rural America in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic — we’re being flooded with tourists.

Hey, city people — I get that you’re laid off from work, and you’re bored, or maybe you’re really scared, but you need to understand a few things. First and foremost, here in rural America, we’re underserved. That means that on a normal day, when there’s not a pandemic, we don’t have enough goods and services for everyone who lives here. What that means in practical terms is that we have to make trips to more populated places for supplies, there are various types of businesses that don’t operate here, and there are medical services, educational programs, etc., that simply aren’t available to us. For example, when one of us gets really sick or needs a complicated surgery, we get airlifted to your hospital, while you might have noticed that no one from your town has ever been airlifted to our hospital.

When there’s a disaster, our need for goods and services increases, and we become even more underserved. We might not be able to make our regular supply runs. The goods we truck in from elsewhere might come less frequently. Our hospital could be overwhelmed. When you then show up here and buy goods and use services, you make our situation even worse, and you actually put us in danger. Right now, my town’s one grocery store is rationing certain, essential items because people were hoarding them — that was a problem before you tourists showed up, but now you all want to buy those things, too. We’re running out. This problem disproportionately affects families on food stamps, by the way, as they have fewer alternatives when the items they need are out of stock.

The second thing you need to understand is that when you leave the city or the suburbs and come here, you’re making us sick. You don’t know if you’re carrying Coronavirus, but what you do know is that there are many more cases of the infection where you live, where more people live and work closer together, and it’s far more likely that you’ll spread the virus to us than the other way around. Cities are where viruses thrive, and they gradually make their way out here to us. It’s a good thing it takes awhile for the viruses to get to us, too, because it takes longer for us to get the resources we need to treat sick people. If we don’t have that lag time, we all get sick before we have the resources we need for treatment. Let me be perfectly clear — you’re going to kill some of us.

This is nothing new. For thousands of years, country people have been producing ‘stuff’ for city people, and city people, in return, have been shitting on us for it. We’re the uneducated, backward, backwoods creeps you love to make fun of, right until you want something from us. We grow all your food and fiber. We produce the materials that make up everything you own. Your fuel comes from us. Your electricity comes from our communities. We even make a lot of the air you breathe. We fight your wars, too, and when you want a vacation, you come to us.

(For the record, I have a graduate degree and I’m a liberal Democrat, just like you. The difference is that in addition to my book lernin’, I know how to survive indefinitely without your help, and I can kick your ass.)

You probably think you’re doing us a favor; you are giving us your money, after all. But the exchange is disproportionately in your favor; most of what you get from us is at the upstream end of the supply chain, where the lowest profit margins are. When finished products come back to our communities, we pay more than you pay for those same products, because we get a bunch of transportation expenses added to our prices. And at the downstream end of the supply chain — the wholesale and retail end — the margins are much bigger, and that’s money that leaves our community and goes back into yours.

Still, when it comes to services that tourists use, we give you a hell of a deal, especially on lodging; it’s great to get a little bit back from you in the form of tourist dollars, but most of us don’t work in tourism. Even those of us who do are going to use whatever money we earn to buy things that funnel the money right back into your community.

I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent here because this is a big part of the subject matter of this website — how rural people can make more money and keep it in their own communities. But I’m also trying to illustrate just a few of the ways city people take advantage of us and take us for granted. Sometimes it’s just annoying. Sometimes it results in systemic issues that do a lot of harm. And in the case of a global pandemic, it can kill us.

Let me put this really clearly: a pandemic is not an occasion for you to travel. Don’t risk our lives for your convenience — I know, it’s essentially what you’ve been doing for thousands of years and your McMansion is made out of logger blood, but this is something much more linear and easier to understand. I’m asking you, please, don’t kill us. Go home. Stay home. If things get a better, we’ll see you this summer.

As I write this, locals are talking about closing the roads in and out of here, and not in any kind of official way. If that sounds extreme, let me assure you that it wouldn’t be the first time. Alternatively, we could all just stay home, where we live, and maybe we’ll all live a little longer.