--- 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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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  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."}}]}] ```