Rural Covid-19 death rate last week a third lower than the week before; new rural infections down 75% from January

Daily Yonder map of new-case rates; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

Covid-19 deaths in rural counties last week fell by a third from the week before, marking "the first significant decline in the rural death rate in more than a month," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "Rural counties had 2,404 deaths from Covid-19 from Sunday, February 14, through Saturday, February 20. Previously, the weekly number of rural deaths hovered around 3,600 for four consecutive weeks." Metropolitan deaths fell by about a third as well, and the rural death rate remained higher than the metro death rate.

The number of new coronavirus infections in rural America also has fallen dramatically. "Since a peak of more than 230,000 new infections in first full week of January, the number of weekly new cases in rural counties has dropped by 75%," Murphy and Marema report. "Last week the number of new Covid-19 cases in rural counties was 56,296, a third less than the previous week. The last time the rural new-infection count was this low was the third week of September."

Murphy and Marema note that weather-related reporting interruptions out of Texas may be responsible for some of the decrease in infections and deaths. Many areas of  "Texas reported 60% fewer cases and 56% fewer deaths last week than the week before," the Yonder reports.

Click here for more information and analysis from the Yonder, including regional analysis, charts, an interactive map with the latest county-level data, and a slider map that lets you compare last week's map with the the week before.