New rural coronavirus cases rose 2 percent last week, while rural Covid-19 deaths fell by more than half

Rates of new coronavirus infections, April 11-17
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version

New rural coronavirus infections from April 11-17 grew 2 percent from the week before, to 50,697 cases; that rate was about the same rate as the one for urban areas. Meanwhile, rural deaths related to Covid-19 fell by 53% from the previous week, to 711. The number is the lowest since mid-July, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder.

The geographic distribution of rural Covid-19 hotspots remained consistent compared to the week before. Michigan led the nation in new infections, as it has for all of April. Other regions with high rates were Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New York, all of New England, the Florida peninsula, northern Illinois, and central Colorado," Murphy and Marema report. "The Texas Panhandle, which had multiple counties with very high rates of infection two weeks ago, cooled a bit last week, But 27 counties in the northwest portion of the state still have high rates of new infections."

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