Covid death rate in December nearly double in rural areas compared to biggest cities; see county-level data

Deaths related to Covid-19 in rural counties in 2020
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

"Rural counties helped lead the way in making December the pandemic’s deadliest month on record, ending the year with an emphatic reversal of the urban-focused manner in which the pandemic began in the U.S. in early 2020," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "More than 16,000 Covid-related deaths were reported in December in nonmetropolitan (rural) counties, about a fifth of the total 73,578 deaths that occurred in the U.S. last month."

Last year, 51,221 rural Americans died from Covid-related causes, and all but 10 of the 100 counties with the highest cumulative death rates were rural. December was the deadliest month on record, accounting for one-third of all coronavirus deaths in 2020. "In nearly 700 counties, the number of Covid-19 deaths doubled or worse during the month," Murphy and Marema report.

Click here for more data and analysis from the Yonder, including charts and interactive maps with county-level data.