The work that people in public health do is often not very visible. It's usually focused on long-term impacts like improving maternal health and encouraging flu shots. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. last spring, public health workers were thrown into the spotlight seemingly overnight. And this sudden shift has taken a huge toll on them.

Local health providers say they haven't gotten enough support from the state, and communication has been uncoordinated and inconsistent. One says recent days were "pure hell."

Meat processing plants across the Midwest have become hotspots for COVID-19. Now rural health workers are trying to keep track of workers who get sick -- and those exposed to the disease. But that's challenging because many workers are immigrants or refugees, and theres a language barrier.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues, some of the biggest outbreaks have been concentrated in urban areas, like New York City and Chicago. But rural America isn't immune to the virus -- and many areas are already dealing with a scarcity of health care.

Many of Americas rural counties have just a handful of COVID-19 cases. And health experts say that may be giving residents a false sense of security. Now, outbreaks at food processing plants could shake that complacency.

If someone gets sick in a seven-county swath of the Ozarks of southeastern Missouri, the closest place for treatment is a clinic run by Missouri Highlands Health Care. But the coronavirus has undermined its financial stability.

Decatur County and two other counties in southeast Indiana have among the highest per-capita infection rates in the country, topping the Seattle area and some counties near hard-hit Detroit.

Indiana Farm Bureau members will have another health care option available to them for next year. Indiana joins a growing list of states with farm bureaus to offer health benefit plans.

In many states, emergency medical services are not considered essential, like fire or police. That means when you call 911, there's no guarantee an ambulance will respond.

In Missouri, six rural hospitals closed in the last five years. It's part of a group of states that have seen higher rates of closures -- states that haven't expanded Medicaid.