New rural coronavirus infections have nearly doubled in the past two weeks, and Covid-19 deaths have jumped 140%

New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, Aug. 8-14
Daily Yonder map; click the map to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

During the week of Aug. 8-14, new rural coronavirus infections rose for the eighth week in a row, to their highest level since the end of January.

"In the past two weeks, new Covid-19 infections in rural counties have nearly doubled, from about 70,000 three weeks ago to 137,204 new cases last week," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. "During the same period, Covid-related deaths in rural counties grew at an even faster rate, climbing from 368 in late July to 893 last week – an increase of more than 140 percent."

About 70% of nonmetropolitan counties had higher infection rates last week than the week before, and about 75% of non-metro counties are on the red-zone list, meaning they have 100 or more new cases per 100,000 people in one week, Murphy and Marema report. And more than 400 red-zone counties (shown in black or gray above) had 500 or more new cases per 100,000 last week.

Click here for an interactive county-level map, regional analysis and charts from the Yonder.