Rural coronavirus cases keep falling, but there are hot spots

Rate of new coronavirus cases, June 20-26
Daily Yonder map; click on it to enlarge, or click here for the interactive version.

With major exceptions such as southwest Missouri and the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains, the coronavirus continued to ebb in the last full week of June, according to The Daily Yonder.

From June 20 through 16, new cases in rural counties dropped 2 percent, from 14,200 two weeks ago to 13,983 last week, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report: "Covid-related deaths in rural counties also declined, falling by 20%, to 395 – the lowest number of fatalities since the earliest days of the pandemic in March 2021."

Missouri's rural infection rate climbed 17%, driven by an outbreak of the Delta variant in counties near Springfield and Joplin. "Cases also climbed in nearby Arkansas," the Yonder notes.