People wait to ride a revolving swing at the Perry State Fair in New Lexington, Ohio, Friday, July 24, 2020. In the towns that speckle the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio, the pandemic has barely been felt. Coronavirus deaths and racial protests _ events that have defined 2020 nation…

Brittany Cunningham 31, walks down the street with her nephew and his dog in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. Brittany, a heroin addict, has been homeless for ten years. Her stories range from across a life steeped in addiction and badly chosen boyfriends to a deep love for music.

A spotlight illuminates Donald Dutiel's cowboy hat at the entrance to one of his homes at a ranch in New Lexington, Ohio, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020.

A Dollar General store sign is illuminated along a street in Zanesville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. Often, the most crowded parking lots are at the ubiquitous Dollar General and Family Dollar stores, signposts of financial hardship.

The headlights of an abandoned car peek through an overgrowth of vines and shrubs in Rendville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. Unemployment skyrocketed to highs of nearly 18 percent amid early virus shutdowns, doubling in some counties from March to April. While those rates have come down s…

A broken statue of a deer stands in a ranch in New Lexington, Ohio, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020.

Larry Steele parks his truck outside his mother's trailer home in New Marshfield, Ohio, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Larry is a quiet man with a gravelly voice and armfuls of tattoos, a couple of them illegible because "the guy doing the tattoo was drunk." A bout with COVID-19, including three…

An outhouse stands behind a building in Rendville, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. Such toilets were once common in some towns until fairly recently and are becoming increasingly rare.

The evening sun shines on a toy car in front of a home in Shawnee, Ohio, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Shawnee was a coal town that once boasted an opera house, a vaudeville theater, dozens of stores and plenty of taverns.

Brittany Cunningham's nephew eats a piece of cheesecake they received from a food pantry in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. Brittany, a heroin addict, has been homeless for ten years.

Brittany Cunningham 31, fills her suitcase with food donations accompanied by her fiance in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. Brittany, a heroin addict, has been homeless for ten years.

Brittany Cunningham 31, shows off her tattoo which reads, "Love Yourself" on her left forearm in Nelsonville, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. "Those are to hide the suicide scars," she said.

Tarah Nogrady's Pekinese dogs wait in her car while she collects water from a trough in Athens, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. Nogrady doubts that the coronavirus is a real threat - it's "maybe a flu-type deal," she says.

Tasha Lamm, 30, covers her face, becoming self-conscious while posing for a portrait, in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. Lamm dreams of taking her family and leaving Ohio, the scene of so much personal pain. "I'm ready to leave this hellhole and everyone in it because I know there's…

Tarah Nogrady collects water from a trough in Athens, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. People have been using it for at least a century, since horses were watered and coal miners would stop by to wipe off grime and dust. They still come - some they think the water is healthier, or makes bette…

Cars are parked in front of a building with a banner which reads "Hotel" in front in Shawnee, Ohio, on Sunday, July 26, 2020. Unemployment skyrocketed to highs of nearly 18 percent amid early virus shutdowns, doubling in some counties from March to April. While those rates have come down sin…

Christmas decorations lie scattered inside an abandoned shop, seen through its broken window in Shawnee, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. Appalachian Ohio has some of the poorest counties in the state, with child poverty rates higher than 30 percent.

A confederate flag hangs in the window of a home of a young Black woman in Shawnee Ohio, on Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Confederate flags have become a symbol of a certain America: white, often rural, sometimes southern, normally conservative. This time, though, it turned out to be a young Black…

Geoffrey West, 34, second left, cuts the hair of customer Bayione Rogers, 22, at the Court Barbershop in Athens, Ohio, on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. West, 34, runs the establishment serving the city's Black community on the third floor of an old downtown office building. West likes Athens, an…

Abandoned shops line Main Street in Shawnee, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020, near abandoned homes, empty schools and boarded-up churches. Shawnee was a coal town that once boasted an opera house, a vaudeville theater, dozens of stores and plenty of taverns.

Angel statues stand beside a gravestone at the Hollister Cemetery in Glouster, Ohio, on Thursday, July 23, 2020. A 2019 study done across Appalachia found that the death rate in 2017 for opioid overdoses was 72 percent higher in Appalachian counties compared those outside the region. Ohio, m…

Young motorcycle and APV racers pose with their trophies at the Perry State Fair in New Lexington, Ohio, Friday, July 24, 2020.

Signs are lit against the dusk sky in Athens, Ohio, on Wednesday, July 22, 2020. Appalachian Ohio has some of the poorest counties in the state, with child poverty rates higher than 30 percent.

Donovyn Bonice, 8, plays with his dog, Delilah, on his family's back porch in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. His mother, Tasha Lamm, 30, is raising her two sons on public assistance.

Tasha Lamm, 30, right, poses for a photo with her girlfriend, Alicia Mullins, 22, and Lamm's sons, Donovyn, 8, left, and Gabriel Bonice, 7, in front of their home in Bidwell, Ohio, on Monday, July 27, 2020. "It sucks being poor," says Lamm who is raising her two sons on public assistance. A …

A boy rides his bicycle while a girl runs with her skateboard past abandoned storefronts along the streets of Shawnee, Ohio, on Friday, July 24, 2020. Shawnee was a coal town that once boasted an opera house, a vaudeville theater, dozens of stores and plenty of taverns. Today, Main Street is…

FILE - In this Sept. 8, 2020, file photo, Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health nurses Crys Kuntz, left, and Sara Nelson confer inside the Bismarck Event Center in Bismarck, N.D., where vehicles were lined up for the weekly drive-thru COVID-19 testing. The coronavirus tightened its grip on the Ame…

FILE - In this May 11, 2020, file photo, Wisconsin National Guard members administer COVID-19 tests in a parking lot in Milwaukee. The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with hospitals in Wisconsin and North Dakota running low on space, and the NFL postponing a game ov…

FILE - In this Sept. 10, 2020, file photo, a man takes a cigarette break in an isolation housing area between Jorns and Humphrey Residence Halls at University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wis. The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with hospitals in Wisconsin and N…

Census taker Paul Trujillo takes a headcount of residents at a home on Friday, Sept. 11, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One member of the household hadn't filled out their decennial Census form, which can be done by mail, online, or over the phone and takes about five minutes to complete. Ne…