The most rural counties had the highest rates of coronavirus infections through January; see county-level data

Coronavirus cases per 1,000 people as of January 30, 2021
American Communities Project map; click it to enlarge or click here for the interactive version.

An analysis of pandemic data shows that the most sparsely populated communities, especially those that are unwilling to socially distance or that have reduced access to health care, had the highest rates of coronavirus infections through January, Dante Chinni reports for the American Communities Project, a social-science and journalism project by George Washington University's School of Media & Public Affairs meant to highlight the issues faced by different types of communities.

ACP divides communities into 15 types: African American South, Aging Farmlands, Big Cities, College Towns, Evangelical Hubs,Exurbs, Graying America, Hispanic Centers, LDS Enclaves, Middle Suburbs,
Military Posts, Native American Lands, Rural Middle America, Urban Suburbs, and Working Class Country. Evangelical Hubs and Hispanic Centers had high infection rates, but the three community types with the highest infection rates are Native American Lands, LDC Enclaves, and Aging Farmlands.

"Those three community types hold very different kinds of populations in terms of age and race, but they share one common factor: They tend to be fairly sparsely populated," Chinni reports. "At the outset of the pandemic, that spread of population was seen as an advantage with a virus that spreads through close contact between people. Now that we’ve passed the one-year anniversary of Covid-19, the data suggest that initial theory didn’t account for many other important factors. These numbers suggest that differences in community attitudes on issues such as masking, gatherings and, in a broader sense, politics (since Covid-19 has become politicized) likely have bigger impacts than sheer density."