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| New coronavirus infections, in ranges by county, March 20-26 Map by The Daily Yonder; click on the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version. |
New coronavirus infections declined for the ninth week straight and fell to a 10-month low last week. Nonmetropolitan counties reported about 25,200 new infections from March 20 to 26, a 17 percent drop from the week before, Tim Marema reports for The Daily Yonder.
"Meanwhile, the infection rate in metropolitan counties headed in the opposite direction. New cases of Covid-19 grew about 28% last week, to a total of about 174,000," Marema reports. "The result is that the metropolitan infection rate is higher than the rural infection rate for the first time since mid-January. The difference is slight – the metro rate is just 12% higher than the rural rate – and is still low compared to rates during the Delta and Omicron surges of fall 2021 and winter 2021-22 respectively."
The rural death rate remained significantly higher than the metro rate last week. "Last week’s rural death rate of 2.53 deaths per 100,000 residents was nearly twice that of the metropolitan death rate of 1.29 per 100,000," Marema reports.
The national map shows several rural hotspots, including Appalachian Kentucky, but state officials told Kentucky Health News that those numbers didn't match their numbers, and that local and district health departments may have had trouble switching from daily to weekly reporting.
Click here for more charts, regional analysis, and county-level interactive maps from the Yonder.
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