New rural virus cases last week stayed mostly steady and deaths were down, but more counties were in red zone

Rural counties had 41,520 new coronavirus infections last week, March 21-27. "That’s a slight increase (2 percent) from the week before. But it marks an interruption in the rapid decline in new infections that rural America has experienced since the beginning of 2021," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. 

Meanwhile, "the number of rural counties in the red zone increased by 10%, from 498 two weeks ago to 546 last week. Red-zone counties have an infection rate of 100 or more new cases per 100,000 residents in a one-week period," Murphy and Marema report. "The higher incidence of red-zone counties could be an indicator of the virus establishing itself for another surge. This hypothesis is supported by the new-infection numbers being reported in metropolitan areas, which grew by 15% last week (from 332,000 to 387,000 new infections last week compared to two weeks ago)."

Covid-related deaths, continued declining nationwide last week, with rural counties reporting under 1,000 deaths for the first time since mid-September. "A total of 882 deaths were reported in rural counties last week, a decline of 23% from two weeks ago," Murphy and Marema report. "Metropolitan deaths declined by 18%, to 5,886 for the week."

Click here for more data and analysis from the Yonder, including regional trends, charts, and an interactive map with county-level data.