FORT WORTH, Texas _ In the rolling plains of western Texas, 78-year-old Marisue Potts watches three 24-hour cable news channels to stay informed.
"It's the only way to get some sense of the truth," Potts said. "And I'll tell you, I'm glad we're not in a big city right now."
Potts lives on a cattle ranch about 15 miles outside of Matador, in Motley County about an hour-and-a-half northeast of Lubbock. It's the 10th least populated county in Texas. About 600 people live in Matador.
Officials there aren't worried about the spread of the coronavirus _ or COVID-19 _ and have not implemented any guidelines to prevent the spread of the disease should it arrive, despite warnings from Texas health officials.
"As you might expect, we started seeing cases in urban areas first but we've now seen cases in all of the state's public health regions and we expect to see more cases in rural areas in the coming days," wrote Lara Anton, press officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, in an email.
"The next two weeks are critical in slowing the spread of the virus," she added. "Texans must act now."
But the scene in Motley County is similar in many rural counties outside the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Some counties have no health departments, no hospitals and few doctors and are ill prepared should the coronavirus invade in force. Some worry about first responders running out of protective gear and other supplies.
Senses are more heightened in counties closer to the metroplex, but local governments have been slow to declare emergencies or enforce preventative measures. Some restaurants and bars in Cleburne, Weatherford and Godley, though, have self-regulated by closing their dine-in spaces or temporarily shutting down.
In Motley County, volunteer fire chief Rodney Williams said there have not been any emergency declarations at the county or city level, and there most likely will not be any.
"Other than city folk coming down trying to buy all our toilet paper, we haven't been affected," Williams said.
People there have limited their trips to bigger cities, and schools have extended their spring break for at least one week, he said. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were no bans on large gatherings or closures.
"This social distancing everyone is talking about, well, we've always done that out here," Williams said jokingly. "We're ready for the long haul."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration due to the coronavirus last week, but he left individual counties to make their own decisions on whether to take similar action or measures to prevent the spread of disease.
Some are waiting for the virus to get there before any kind of declaration.
On Tuesday, Johnson County (south of Fort Worth) and Van Zandt County (east of Fort Worth) announced their first cases of COVID-19. At the same time, officials in both counties said they planned to announce an emergency declaration at a later time.
On Wednesday, Northeast Texas Public Health officials held a virtual meeting from a Henderson County courthouse, southeast of Dallas, to explain how COVID-19 reached rural North Texas and to answer questions from the public.
Northeast Texas Public Health is a regional health district serving 35 counties in northeast Texas, including Henderson, Smith and Van Zandt.
Russell Hopkins, the district's director of public health emergency preparedness, said the rapid growth in positive cases, from 4,000 cases in the U.S. on Tuesday morning to more than 6,000 cases by Wednesday, means the virus has reached places where positive cases have not yet been reported.
"It exists in the community a lot deeper than what we're able to test for," Hopkins said. "Pandemics don't really care about your borders, or your oceans or barriers, it only replicates," said Hopkins during a health meeting streamed live from Henderson County.
He said people should wash their hands and practice social distancing. "Even church is a terrible place to be right now," he added.
In Wise County, northwest of Fort Worth, Emergency Management Coordinator Cody Powell said he doesn't think the county needs to issue an emergency declaration.
"From our perspective, we haven't had the need to impose any type of government regulation, because, like many rural counties in Texas, we are very good at working together," he said on Tuesday.
Extra safety and health precautions are being implemented at the "grassroots" level in churches, restaurants and community groups, he said.
But scientists have urged mandated closures to cut the thread of the virus spreading.
As of Tuesday afternoon, schools and local businesses remained open in Johnson County (schools are closed in Wise and Van Zandt counties), unless individual districts _ like Godley _ made the decision to close schools themselves.
Jamie Moore, the emergency management coordinator for Johnson County, said rural counties have faced more of a challenge responding to COVID-19 because of a lack or shortage of health departments and supplies.
There is no county health department in Johnson County.
Godley Family Medicine is the only doctor's office serving the more than 1,100 people who live in the town. They're trying to limit the number of people who sit in waiting rooms, screening patients for symptoms of COVID-19 and offering virtual visits.
About 20 minutes east, Cleburne Family Medicine, also in Johnson County, saw more than 180 people at its office on Monday, and staff members said they could be running out of face masks soon.
"The biggest issue is the masks," Moore said. "It's critical that we get the necessary supplies to the hands of the doctors having face-to-face contact with patients every day."
He said the county had requested additional medical supplies from the U.S. Center for Disease Control's Strategic National Stockpile. The national stockpile is the nation's largest supply of potentially life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out.
David Wallis, the city administrator of Godley, said the town's volunteer fire department is running out of masks.
"We only have a certain amount of masks and other protective equipment," he said. "It'll get us a few weeks down the road but after that we'll be out, and we don't have an avenue to refill it."
To cope, Wallis said, only one first responder will go into a building, no matter the nature of the call. That person will go in with full body, face and head coverings. Then, the person will change his or her clothes and wash themselves.
"If we have to quarantine our crew, that's a big impact on our population of responders," he said.
Being a small town away from the center mass of Dallas-Fort Worth during this time is a double edged sword, he said.
"It seems our location would probably limit exposure," he said. "On the other hand, we have to be careful that if we did have an exposure, it would be at a higher risk to go undetected. There's a fairly large portion of our area that doesn't have readily available access to a doctor."
Wallis said the city of Godley has made it a point to communicate with residents through surveys to make sure they're adhering to social distancing rules. The city is taking directives through the Centers for Disease Control and is following the same protocols as Johnson County.
For the past week, Vicki McAlister, the Van Zandt County emergency management coordinator, has been dialing in to a conference call with the Texas Department of Health and Human Services every afternoon, along with other coordinators across the state.
"For the most part, things have been calm here," McAlister said. "For the limited resources we have, we got a handle on this."
In Palo Pinto County, west of Fort Worth, officials are relaxed.
Mistie Moon, the emergency management coordinator, said residents "are going on with their daily lives, except for a few additional health and safety precautions, such as washing their hands more frequently and staying indoors if you're sick."
Her office is meeting with county, city, hospital and school officials every day to assess the latest developments surrounding COVID-19.
The county has not banned large gatherings or declared a state of emergency. In Fort Worth and Cleburne, crowds are limited to 50 people maximum.
The last time Parker County released information about the COVID-19 virus on its website was on March 12. At a news conference on Tuesday, Parker County Emergency Management Coordinator Sean Hughes said there is no emergency declaration in the county, and he thinks that's a good thing, the Weatherford Democrat reported.
"In discussions with the judge and (commissioners) court on when and where do we get to that point, when we have some patients is probably a very good time," Hughes said. "Once we get some patients that have been identified, that have the virus in Parker County, then there are going to be some additional actions that need to be taken. So once we get maybe one or two of those, that's probably a very good time in looking at a declaration from the county."
Most locally owned restaurants on Cleburne's main street were open in some capacity on Monday evening.
The parking lot of Grumps Burgers, at 1704 N. Main St., was about half full, but General Manager James Wren said things weren't normal.
Inside, about a dozen people at five different tables sat down to eat. They were all on one side of the restaurant, some sitting in booths next to each other _ not six feet apart like the CDC recommends.
In Weatherford, west of Fort Worth, some businesses closed their doors and asked residents to call for pick-up orders. One bar was open for St. Patrick's Day, with about 20 people inside, all standing too close to each other based on the CDC's recommendations.
The owner of the bar declined to comment and added that they were taking precautions to keep people healthy.
For Dally Powell, a 23-year-old restaurant owner in Godley, the virus could mean an end to a dream.
"We just came off of one of our best months sales-wise," he said. "It's hard because there's only so much you can do as a small business. We're just trying to prepare for a total shutdown right now."
He, along with the four other Godley restaurants, shifted to take-out only last week, without being asked to by public officials.
Potts, who lives outside Matador, said she usually leaves the ranch three times a week to pick up the mail and buy groceries, but she's decided to self-isolate herself for at least a few weeks.
"In bigger cities people depend on takeout and buy groceries every day on their way home from work, but here we're used to having large freezers and stocking up," Potts said. "Really all you need is your bean pot."
