--- title: There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault description: No areas of the country are being spared from what's hopefully the virus' last stand. canonical: https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/ author: Chris Wilson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-12-01T16:59:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T09:28:56.472Z article:section: Health og:title: There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault on the U.S. og:description: No areas of the country are being spared from what's hopefully the virus' last stand og:url: https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt05417b3e62aec65e/698a14cb929fad679dbf6d21/covid-19-safe-haven.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: COVID-19 Safe Haven og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault on the U.S. twitter:description: No areas of the country are being spared from what's hopefully the virus' last stand twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt05417b3e62aec65e/698a14cb929fad679dbf6d21/covid-19-safe-haven.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault on the U.S. > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=f3b82457-a45e-4e6e-a15d-245c9d81a2c6&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1)  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Dec 1, 2020 4:59 PM UTC  Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Dr. Joseph Varon hugs and comforts a patient in the COVID-19 intensive care unit (ICU) during Thanksgiving at the United Memorial Medical Center on November 26, 2020 in Houston, Texas. Go Nakamura—Getty Images  by [Chris Wilson](https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/)  ## Chris Wilson Dec 1, 2020 4:59 PM UTC Since COVID-19 [arrived in the United States](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191) more than 10 months ago, it has infected 13.5 million people across the country, or 1 in 24 U.S. residents. How many of them do you know? If the virus infected people at random, your answer would probably be “a few” or even “two dozen,” based on [a study that estimated](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/science/the-average-american-knows-how-many-people.html#:~:text=The%20average%20American%20knows%20about%20600%20people.) the average person knows about 600 other people—at which point the odds that you know at least one infected person would be just a hair shy of 100%. Reduce that estimate to 50 people, and the odds are still 87%, and growing by the day. But in reality, your answer may be anywhere from “it’s infected many of my closest friends and loved ones” to “no one.” In part, that difference has to do with who you are and where you live—COVID-19 has taken a [particularly heavy toll](https://time.com/5877004/covid-black-americans-1918-flu/) on minority and low-income communities. But it’s also likely due to the fact that, until recently, the virus spread unevenly across the country, geographically speaking. As [hotspots emerged](https://time.com/5881897/coronavirus-spread-united-states/) in the Northeast, the Sun Belt, and the Midwest over the spring, summer and into autumn, many counties elsewhere were regularly reporting zero new cases. So, even as the national figures climbed at an alarming rate, for many Americans, the nearest new case was still several counties over. Now, those pockets of relative safe haven are nearly extinct. Even before an [almost certain surge](https://time.com/5910635/thanksgiving-covid-19/) in the wake of Thanksgiving gatherings, there’s [nowhere in the U.S.](https://time.com/5800901/coronavirus-map/) where the virus isn’t at least simmering, if not boiling over. To demonstrate this, TIME analyzed the moving average of new cases in each U.S. county since late March. For each county that had zero recent cases on any given day, we computed the average distance to locations with at least one recent new case, giving the county what you might call a “safe haven metric”—which, in the case of counties with active cases, was 0\. Then, for each day, we calculated the average of these metrics for each county, weighted by population. As you might expect, this metric moved in approximately inverse proportion to the rising rate of new cases in the spring and summer, plummeting from 80 miles to under 30 as cases peaked in early April, concentrated in the Northeast. It then rose during the mid-July lull before the second wave, only to dip dramatically as cases later surged once again. But then the reverse dovetailing ends. Since the summer peak, the [eye of the coronavirus](https://time.com/5881897/coronavirus-spread-united-states/) has moved considerably toward the upper Midwest. However, unlike a hurricane, COVID-19 has not left entirely after doing its damage, and the virus remains a threat everywhere it’s touched. As of Nov. 17, [zero counties](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/coronavirus-zero-cases-loving-county-texas.html) in the continental U.S. were left that had not reported a single case at any point. More importantly, on any given day, there are now typically fewer than 20 counties with a rolling average of zero new cases, whereas previously there were often hundreds. Even as [vaccine development and production](https://time.com/5916268/moderna-fda-covid-19-vaccine/) continues at a frantic pace, COVID-19 will not go quietly. Nor, by all indications, is there anywhere left in the U.S. that will remain untouched in what is hopefully its final act. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/"},"headline":"There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault on the U.S.","datePublished":"2020-12-01T16:59:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T09:28:56.472Z","description":"No areas of the country are being spared from what's hopefully the virus' last stand","url":"https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/","keywords":["COVID-19","UnitedWeRise20Disaster"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt05417b3e62aec65e/698a14cb929fad679dbf6d21/covid-19-safe-haven.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chris Wilson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/chris-wilson/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt05417b3e62aec65e/698a14cb929fad679dbf6d21/covid-19-safe-haven.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"COVID-19 Safe Haven","caption":"Houston Hospital Staff Works In COVID ICU On Thanksgiving","creditText":"Go Nakamura—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/covid-19/","name":"COVID-19"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5916512/covid-19-safe-haven/","name":"There Will Be No Safe Havens in COVID-19's Final Assault on the U.S."}}]}] ```