Over the last year, the pandemic has sometimes brought the state and local governments together as they allied to face a grim future together in the face of no centralized national response strategy. It has also sometimes wrenched them apart.

Much of COVID-19 transmission in rural Nevada happens in private settings where individual choices about how to gather and whether to wear a mask are responsible for new infections. It’s a problem facing the entire country but one uniquely challenging in the rural West where freedom is precious, mistrust of government runs high and hospital beds are scarce.