Rural vaccination rate steady overall, rising in high-infection areas; new rural infections up more than 50% in past week

New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, July 25-31
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version

Two items from The Daily Yonder show rural trends in coronavirus vaccinations and infections.

Driven by the highly infectious Delta variant, the coronavirus "surged across the southern Midwest and South for the fifth consecutive week last week, raising new rural infections to a rate not seen since the middle of February," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for the Yonder. Rural areas saw just under 70,000 new cases in the week of July 25-31, a jump of more than 50 percent "after climbing by more than 60% the week before. In the past six weeks, new cases in rural counties have increased five-fold. The metropolitan new-infection rate has climbed at a slightly higher rate over the same period."

Deaths, the most lagging indicator of the pandemic, are beginning to rise. Rural counties saw 368 Covid-related deaths last week, up 25 from the week before—a 7% increase. New Covid deaths in metropolitan counties rose about 22% last week, Murphy and Marema report.

"The number of rural red-zone counties also surged last week, climbing by more than two-thirds to 945," they report. "That means nearly half of all the nation’s 1,976 nonmetropolitan counties are in the red zone, a three-fold increase in the past three weeks." Red zones, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have 100 or more new infections per 100,000 residents in a week.

Click here for more charts and regional analysis from the Yonder on infection rates, including an interactive county-level map.

Meanwhile, new vaccination rates in rural areas remained steady overall last week, but 19 states, "including several with rising rates of new Covid-19 infections, saw gains in the pace of rural vaccinations last week," Murphy and Marema report. "Increases in vaccination numbers in states like Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana confirm anecdotal evidence that rising infection rates in those states are creating renewed interest in vaccinations."

Nationwide, 150,205 rural residents completed coronavirus vaccinations last week. "That brings the percentage of the total rural population that has completed vaccination to 36.2%, an increase of about 0.3 percentage points from two weeks ago," Murphy and Marema report. The metropolitan vaccination rate, now at 47.3%, is 11.1 percentage points higher than the rural rate. The metro rate continues to grow more quickly; last week the gap widened by 0.1 points.

Click here for more charts and regional analysis from the Yonder on vaccination rates, including an interactive county-level map.

Rural/urban vaccination rates as of July 29, compared to the national average and adjusted to account for vaccinations not assigned to specific counties. Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or here for the interactive version.