Rural southwest Missouri to see surge in holiday tourists during COVID-19 spike there

Campers and canoers looking to vacate the city with a trip to southwest Missouri for the holiday weekend will be stepping into a part of the state seeing a recent surge in COVID-19 cases.

Rural McDonald County, with a population of 23,078, now has 734 cases, many of them tied to the local meat-processing plant. Meanwhile, campground owners, largely along the Elk River and Big Sugar Creek, are preparing for a busy July Fourth weekend of tourists. They operate mainly during the summer months and have about 92 days to make much of their living for the year.

The coronavirus first established its presence in the county on March 25, infecting one person. The health department said it was travel related. The virus spread slowly after that, infecting its fourth person April 13 and then not another until almost a month later.

On June 21, the number of infections nearly doubled in a single day, and the county recently recorded its first death, a 51-year-old man with no underlying health conditions.

“We do feel sometimes like we’re isolated from illnesses and like they won’t reach our area but they do eventually,” said Paige Behm, McDonald County Health Department administrator. “They hit the rural areas as well as the big urban areas.”

The Tyson poultry plant in Noel, Missouri, accounts for over half of infections in the county. The plant announced last week that 371 of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus. Of the positives, 249 of them were asymptomatic.

The McDonald County Health Department has recommended that campground owners uphold the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines of staying 6 feet apart and wearing face coverings.

“We can recommend that they social distance, and we do strongly recommend that,” Behm said. “As far as enforcement, there is no ordinance to back that up to make it law.”

McDonald County Eastern Commissioner John Bunch said he is not really worried about people wearing face masks, adding that was never going to happen on the river. And camping 6 feet apart may or may not happen. But he said he is worried about transporting tourists on school buses packed to capacity to go floating.

Campground owners told the health department they were sanitizing buses between every single transport, but the department of commissioners has no way of knowing if campground attendants are upholding promised sanitation efforts as they bus hundreds of floaters from camping sites to nearby rivers.

While the health department says no positive cases have originated at a McDonald County campground, Bunch said it would be difficult to confirm if there was one.

Bunch said an outbreak originating from a campground could possibly force shutdowns. Campground owners are continuing operations, and health department officials are monitoring the situation.

Pre-pandemic, the health department operated just fine with 11 employees, Behm said. It has since added 10 people to help with contact tracing, nearly doubling its staff in the wake of the pandemic.

Behm said the extra help has been needed as she and others in the department are working more than 12 hours a day to stay on top of things.

“It’s been a busy time,” Behm said. “I think we still need more.”