Meatpacking plants, prisons, large non-white populations biggest common threads among rural pandemic hotspots

New covid-19 infection rates over the past 30 days (Daily Yonder map made with USA Facts data;
click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.)

"Meatpacking plants continue to be the largest single factor in covid-19 hotspots in rural America. But the next largest characteristic of rural America’s hardest hit counties is that they are home to large numbers of non-whites," Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder. "Of the 46 rural counties that have been hardest hit by new cases of covid-19 in the last 30 days, 20 trace their high numbers back to meatpacking plants. Another five counties had large numbers of infections at state or federal prisons." The 46 counties were those where more than 1 percent of the population is infected.

Other hard-hit rural counties tend to have large shares of non-white populations, including African-Americans and Native Americans. Two counties with large proportions of Hispanic residents are on the top 46 list. Click here for a list and stats on the top 46 counties, plus an interactive map with county-level data.