Mifflin County offers a snapshot into how one hard-hit community moved from skepticism about the scientific reality of the covid virus, and then about the vaccine, to coping with unbearable loss.
Lewistown is the seat of Mifflin County, Pennsylvania. The county has recorded over 300 deaths from covid-19 since the pandemic began. McVEYTOWN, Pa. — Connie Houtz didn’t think covid would be that bad.
Within a few days, Houtz’s oldest son, 50-year-old Toby Delamarter, had also been admitted to the hospital with the virus and shortness of breath.“Even though it does not seem fair and does not seem right, down the road we will find a reason for why things happen,” said Houtz, 71, as she sat at her kitchen table.
The United States is nearing 1 million deaths from covid — a number that few thought possible when the pandemic began. Mifflin County offers a snapshot into how one hard-hit community moved from skepticism about the scientific reality of the covid virus, and then about the vaccine, to coping with unbearable loss and processing the trauma. Roughly 8 in 10 deaths nationwide from April to December 2021 were among the unvaccinated, according to the latest analysis of data from 23 states and New York City and Seattle by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Connie Houtz of McVeytown, Pennsylvania, holds a photograph of sons Toby and Eric Delamarter. They died of covid less than two weeks apart in October and November 2021. Toby was 50. Eric was 45. The sons also lived in McVeytown, a rural central Pennsylvania town in Mifflin County, which has one of the highest covid death rates in the country.At the Corner Lunchbox on a recent afternoon, hands of all five employees and customers quickly shot up when asked whether they knew anyone killed by covid.
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