New rural coronavirus infections at lowest level since last summer, but gap in rural, urban death rates still growing

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

Nonmetropolitan counties reported about 30,500 new coronavirus infections in the week of March 13-19, a 20 percent drop from the previous week and the lowest number since last July; new cases in metro counties likewise fell even more, about 22%, reports Tim Marema of The Daily Yonder.

There was a much larger rural-urban difference in deaths attributed to Covid-19 last week. Deaths in non-metro counties numbered 1,723, a decline of less than 2% from the week before, but metro counties reported about 5,000 Covid-related deaths, a drop of about 25%.

"The weekly death rate has been higher in rural counties than metropolitan ones for 80 out of the last 85 weeks," Marema reports. "The biggest gap between rural and urban death rates was in November 2020, when the weekly death rate was 150% higher in rural areas than urban ones. The weekly gap narrowed during the Omicron surge but has expanded recently. That's because metropolitan deaths are declining rapidly while the rural death count has remained relatively stable for the past three weeks."