By comparison, outside of cities, the spread will be far, far slower than within. Yes, healthcare is worse, but there's an order of magnitude fewer cases. People travel less. They go to the store once every two weeks, not every 4 days, even when there isn't a quarantine. They don't visit the new hipster restaurant down the street. They don't live twenty feet away from their neighbors.
NYC has 25% of all of the United State's cases, despite having ~2% of the US's population. This is the same story that is playing out in every state. Let's take Indiana as an example, being that they're having a relatively moderate outbreak with mostly rural areas surrounding a top 15 US city by population: Indianapolis has 41% of the state's cases, despite representing ~12% of the state's population.
This shouldn't be a surprise; diseases spread faster in cities. But, what you're asserting is that, eventually, rural areas will see the same spread that cities are. This feels misguided. That isn't to say that some, or even most, rural hospitals wont be "running hot" for a really long time, and that the virus wont spread and these areas, but its simply unlikely that the situation will ever be as bad as in major cities.
There’s also a time lag. I think it hit New York first because of all the travel connections.
But why would rural areas be immune? People do still meet each other. They do go to church.
Tellingly, flu death rates tend to be higher in rural areas:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/19/rural-areas...
https://www.foxnews.com/us/louisiana-pastor-who-defied-coron...
> "We're all going to die one day"[0]
> “I’m sorry, some people will die, they will die, that’s life,” Bolsonaro said in a television interview on Friday night. “You can’t stop a car factory because of traffic deaths.”[1]
> Bolsonaro has compared the new coronavirus to a "little flu," condemned the reaction to it as "hysteria," and said Brazilians' immune systems are so strong they can swim in raw sewage and "don't catch a thing."[2]
> He has called the virus a “measly cold.” “Some will die” from it, he said, because “such is life.” [3]
> ..more than 20 members of Bolsonaro’s U.S. delegation have tested positive for the coronavirus. Bolsonaro ignored his own health ministry’s advice to self-isolate for a couple of weeks and to discourage large gatherings. He made a defiant show of shaking hands and taking selfies at a rally that attracted hundreds of his supporters. [4]
[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/brazils-bolsonaro-downplay...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/27/world/americas/27...
[2] https://www.afp.com/en/news/15/bolsonaro-takes-down-virus-sh...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/world/americas/brazil-bol...
[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/03/bolsona...
The US sure has a lot of problems, but that doesn't mean everything we do is the worst.