New virus cases rose in rural areas and fell in metros, and are now disproportionately rural; see county-level data

New coronavirus infection categories by county, Aug. 23-29
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it, or click here for the interactive version.

After three weeks of a decline in new coronavirus infections, new cases in non-metropolitan counties increased by 9 percent from Aug. 23-29. New metropolitan cases fell by 8% in the same time period.

"The number of deaths also grew by 9% in rural America compared to the previous week, while deaths in metropolitan counties fell by 6%," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "The result is that rural counties now account for a disproportionate share of new cases and deaths in the United States. While rural counties have only 14.0% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 17.3% of new covid-19 cases for the week ending Aug. 29. During the same period, rural counties produced 18.9% of covid-19-related deaths."

About 75% of the new rural infections and deaths came from "red zone" counties that have about 40% of the rural population. Red-zone counties are those with at least one case per thousand residents in a White House Coronavirus Task Force reporting week, which runs from Saturday through Friday.