For the first time since June, rural America’s weekly death rate from Covid-19 was lower than the metropolitan death rate last week, a Daily Yonder analysis shows.
It was only the second week in nearly 2½ years that the weekly rural death rate did not exceed the metropolitan death rate, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths
Rural counties reported 431 Covid-19 deaths last week, a 7.5% drop from two weeks ago. There were 35 fewer deaths last week compared to two weeks ago, and the rural death rate was 0.94 deaths per 100,000 residents.
Last week, the rural death rate was 3% lower than the urban rate of 0.96 deaths per 100,000 residents. Metropolitan America reported 668 more deaths last week compared to two weeks ago, a 32.5% increase.
Infections
Although death rates in rural communities dropped last week, infection rates increased by 6% and still surpass urban rates. Rural America reported 38,002 new infections last week, a rate of 82.5 new infections per 100,000 residents.
In urban counties, the infection rate was 77.6 new infections per 100,000 residents, virtually no change since two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, about a quarter of both rural and urban counties were in the red zone, defined as having 100 or more new infections per 100,000 residents
Because the CDC does not report infections detected through home testing, the actual infection rates are likely much higher.
The cumulative death rate, which includes all deaths since the start of pandemic in the U.S., is 36.9% higher in rural areas than in urban ones. The cumulative rural death rate was 403.8 deaths per 100,000 residents last week, while the cumulative urban rate was 294.83 deaths per 100,000 residents.
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