Rural America reported 492 deaths last week, compared to 643 deaths two weeks ago. Despite decreasing rural death rates, the cumulative gap between urban and rural rates continues to grow.
Deaths
Rural counties reported a Covid-19 death rate of 1.07 deaths per 100,000 residents last week, compared to 1.4 two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, metropolitan death rates decreased by 9.7% and totaled 2,055 deaths last week, compared to 2,275 deaths the previous week. The death rate in urban America last week was 0.73 deaths per 100,000 residents.
The rural death rate remained higher than the metropolitan death rate last week, but the gap shrunk by 26.4 percentage points. Cumulatively, the rural death rate was 37% higher than the urban death rate.
Infections
Rural counties reported 35,110 new Covid-19 infections last week, a 13.3% drop from two weeks ago. The rural infection rate was 76.22 new infections per 100,000 residents, compared to 87.99 infections per 100,000 the week of October 5th.
Urban America reported an 11% decrease in infections. Last week, metropolitan counties reported 218,267 new cases. The metropolitan infection rate was 77.35 new infections per 100,000 residents, compared to 87.44 two weeks ago.
Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not report the number of infections detected through home testing, the actual infection rate is likely much higher.
The cumulative death rate in urban America was 293.14 Covid-19 deaths per 100,000 residents last week. Rural America, meanwhile, reported a cumulative death rate of 401.85 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
