Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap. Today's Friday, July 10th.

Stocks were up on promising COVID treatment news, global merger activity is down nearly 40%,

and we're focused on how not all coronavirus outbreaks are created equal.

The big story today is the same as it has been for weeks, the rapidly increasing

number of coronavirus infections.

We're also seeing big rises in deaths and a record number of hospitalizations in Florida.

Most of the focus, both back in March and today, has obviously been on the cities, originally

New York, now Miami and Houston, because of their density and high numbers of cases.

But that attention has also engendered a misperception that the virus isn't also taking its toll

in more rural areas. To be sure, social distancing is easier outside of cities, but it can also be harder

there to find quality medical care, which can contribute to higher morbidity rates. A Georgia

microbiologist named Amber Schmidtke has been tracking this trend in her state and finds that the

lowest death rates for infected people between the ages of 40 and 69 are

actually in Atlanta, the state's most populous city. Why it matters is that states are increasingly

recognizing that they need to localize public health policy when it comes to COVID-19,

not just things like masks or whether or not to open schools, but even how health care is distributed.

In 15 seconds, we'll go deeper on this with Amber Schmidtke. But first, this.

We're joined now by Amber Schmidtke, assistant professor of microbiology at Mercer University's

School of Medicine. So, Amber, let's just start kind of big picture here.

You've spent the last several months watching the numbers of coronavirus cases across the country,

but particularly in Georgia. What are the red flags you're seeing right now in terms of how

things are trending? Right now, the thing that is most concerning is our surge in cases, but especially our

...