why do phone calls go straight to voicemail?

FIRST: Are the missed calls in Phone/Recents on the phone? If they are not the problem is in the network, because the calls aren’t getting to your phone. Contact your carrier: 

• check with your carrier that they don’t have a local outage, and that you didn’t have any settings that would have immediately invoked voicemail
• check up on them at Down Detector - outages

If they are in Recents here’s what to check:

• Check the MUTE switch on the left side of the phone, above the volume buttons. It should be towards the screen
• Check the volume setting. With the Home screen displayed, press the VOLUME UP button on the left side of the phone. It’s above the VOLUME DOWN button.
• Go to Settings/Do not Disturb. Turn it off if it is on. Also turn off Scheduled. With both off none of the other switches there matter.
• Go to Settings/Phone. There’s a switch for Silence Unknown Callers. If it is on any calls from numbers not in your contacts will go directly to voicemail.
• Also in Settings/Phone: Make sure Call Forwarding is off.
• Go to Settings/Sounds & Haptics. Make sure there is a sound assigned to Ringtone.
• Go to Settings/Screen Time/Communications Limits. Tap each of the 2 entries and make sure both are “Everyone"
• Restart your phone-->RESTART your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Hi capecodbob1951,

It looks like your incoming calls go straight to Voicemail and the phone does not ring. We know how important it is to know when you have an incoming call. We're glad you reached out for help.

Start with the steps below to make sure Do Not Disturb is enabled.

Use Do Not Disturb on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch

Another setting to check is "Silence Unknown Callers":

Detect and block spam phone calls

We hope this helps. Take care!