The coronavirus has already infected all 3,006 counties in the United States, according to a new report.
The last county to record a positive case was the smallest in the country: Kalawao County, a remote island enclave in Hawaii established in the 1860s for people with leprosy, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Kalawao’s first case was recorded on December 10, after a resident received a positive COVID result after returning to the county from a trip to Honolulu.
Five leprosy patients, all elderly and considered to be at high risk, still live in Kalawao.
However, the county has so far managed to prevent further spread, with the person with a positive result immediately alerting authorities and quarantining them.
The discovery in Kalawao came just under 11 months after the first case of COVID-19 was registered in Snohomish County, Washington, on January 20, 2020.
Since then, the virus has continued to devastate its way across the country, infecting more than 24 million Americans and killing more than 400,000.
As reported by the WSJ, data released by Johns Hopkins indicated that COVID-19 has already reached all counties in the 48 contiguous states and Hawaii.
Although Alaska does not have formal counties, its own panel of virus data shows cases in every neighborhood in the state and census areas.
The last county to file a case was the smallest in the country: Kalawao County (above), a remote island enclave in Hawaii established in the 1860s for people with leprosy
In 1866, during the reign of Kamehameha V, the Hawaii legislature passed a law that resulted in the designation of Molokai as a site for a leper colony, where patients severely affected by the disease were forced to isolate
Early in the pandemic, the virus first hit large, densely populated cities – such as New York and Los Angeles – before eventually spreading to less populated rural counties months later.
In November, the coronavirus reached the country’s second smallest county, Loving County, Texas, which has a population of just 169.
The following month, the country’s smallest county, Kalawao, was the last to register a case of the disease.
The small enclave on the island of Molokai, difficult to access, was established in 1866 and housed thousands of leprosy patients – now known as leprosy – who were forced into exile.
Father Patrick Killilea, pastor of the Church of San Francisco in Kalaupapa, the small town in the county, told the Journal that the remote nature of the enclave helped keep the virus under control for about 11 months.
“It is a place of isolation,” he said. ‘We know that the cliffs and the ocean have protected us.’
According to Killilea, the county has limited connections to the outside world.
Residents, of whom there are only about 70, are required to catch a plane or hike the high cliffs of the county if they want to reach other parts of Molokai.
The deal also depends on an annual barge visit for vital supplies, according to the WSJ.
But despite the county’s isolation, the Hawaii Department of Health took steps to isolate the agreement when COVID-19 began to emerge in nursing homes across the American continent early last year.
State health officials have limited visits to the county to protect its last five remaining leprosy patients, in addition to several other security measures.
The five patients, who can freely enter and leave the municipality, are on average 86 years old. Some of them have serious underlying health problems and are considered to be at high risk due to COVID-19.
However, despite measures taken by health authorities, the municipality notified its first case of the virus on December 10.
The infected person, a resident, apparently contracted the virus outside the enclave, but discovered his positive case when he returned home.
According to the Journal, the patient was asymptomatic. They reportedly took a COVID test in Honolulu, but only received a positive result when they returned to Kalaupapa County.
Notably, the county was able to prevent an outbreak after the infected individual and three close contacts on his flight were quarantined after landing.
At its peak, about 1,200 men, women and children were exiled to the enclave
Father Damian (left) – or Saint Damian of Molokai – a Catholic priest, settled there in 1873. He cared for the inhabitants of the enclave for 11 years, helping to heal their ills, making coffins, digging graves and eating beside them, before getting the disease himself
After the end of the isolation law in 1969, the state legislature considered shutting down the facility entirely. However, after public protests, they allowed residents who wished to stay there to stay for the rest of their lives. Five people remain
A Hawaii Department of Health official called the person a ‘hero’ for quickly reporting his case and for following the quarantine.
In the state as a whole, Hawaii has recorded 24,551 cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic and 322 people have died. The state currently has the second lowest test positivity rate in the country, 2.4 percent. The lowest is Vermont, with 2.3.
Each district and census area of the Alaskan coronavirus panel is also showing cases. The state currently has a test positivity rate of 3.1 percent – the fourth lowest in the country.
One of the last neighborhoods affected by the virus in Alaska was Skagway, which is home to about 1,000 people, but attracts more than a million tourists each year.
With the nearest hospital about an hour away by plane, authorities acted quickly to protect the area from the virus when the pandemic began, realizing that a local outbreak could be catastrophic.
However, the virus finally arrived in mid-October, after Mike O’Daniel returned from Anchorage with his wife after an unrelated visit to the hospital.
One of the last neighborhoods to be affected by the virus in Alaska was Skagway, in the southeast of the state, which is home to about 1,000 people
O’Daniel told the Journal that shortly after his return, several members of his family fell ill – including his 93-year-old mother.
Fortunately, his entire family survived, although his brother was temporarily locked up in an intensive care unit in Seattle.
Since O’Daniel’s case, 16 other cases of the virus have been reported in Skagway.
The 73-year-old hardware store worker said he had quickly alerted local authorities to his condition.
“It’s a small city; everyone will find out about it anyway, ‘he said. – I prefer to protect my friends.
Preliminary figures released on Thursday suggest that 2020 will be the deadliest year in U.S. history.
A record 3,260,397 people died last year, which public health experts say is due to COVID-19, indirect pandemic deaths and overdoses.
That number is about 15 percent higher than the 2,835,533 Americans who died in 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other deadly years in American history include 1,430,079 deaths in 1918, the year of the Spanish flu pandemic and the end of the First World War; 1,459,544 deaths in 1943, the deadliest year of World War II and 1,930,082 deaths in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.
In 2020, 347,341 people died in the U.S. due to COVID-19, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Since then, more than 58,000 people have died from the virus, increasing the death toll to more than 406,000 – greater than the number of Americans who died in the First World War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.