New rural coronavirus infections fell 35% last week and 75% over past month, but 80% of rural counties still in 'red zone'

New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, Feb. 13-19
Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

The rate of new infections in rural America fell 35 percent during the week of Feb. 13-19, "the third consecutive week of significant declines. Since the second half of January, new infections in rural counties have dropped by more than 75%. The metropolitan infection rate fell by a similar amount," Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder.

"Despite the dramatic gains of the last month, more than 80% of the nation’s rural counties remain in the red zone, meaning they have weekly infection rates of at least 100 new cases per 100,000," Marema reports, but things look a lot better than they did a month ago: "The percentage of rural counties with very high rates of infection (defined as 500 or more cases per 100,000 for the week) has fallen from 94% the week of Jan. 22 to just 14% last week."

Rural counties reported 2,744 deaths related to Covid-19 last week, an increase of less than 1% from the week before. "The rural death rate was 50% higher than the metropolitan death rate last week (5.96 vs. 3.92 deaths per 100,000 residents)," Marema reports. "The rural death rate has been higher than the metropolitan death rate for 76 of the last 81 weeks."

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