Covid-19 death rate in rural areas is the highest since May

Rate of new coronavirus infections by county, Sept. 13-19
Map by The Daily Yonder; for the interactive version, with county data, click here.

President Biden may have declared the pandemic over, but rural Americans are dying from Covid-19 at the highest rate since May, Sarah Melotte reports for The Daily Yonder.

Health officials attributed 625 more deaths to Covid-19 last week. "That’s 130 more reported deaths than two weeks ago and a 26.3% increase in the number of deaths. Last week, the rural death rate was 1.21 deaths per 100,000 residents," Melotte writes. "Metropolitan counties, meanwhile, reported 2,700 deaths. The death rate in urban America was .83 deaths per 100,000 residents, a 1.4% increase from two weeks ago." For the entire pandemic, the rural death rate was 389.99 deaths per 100,000 people, "while the cumulative urban death rate was 285.16 deaths per 100,000."

New-case rates dropped in rural counties, but far less than in metro counties, Melotte reports: "Rural counties reported 109,374 new cases last week, a 2.89% drop from two weeks ago. The infection rate in rural America was 233.1 new infections per 100,000 residents, compared to 240 two weeks ago. New infections in metropolitan counties totaled 664,195 last week, a 10.31% drop from two weeks ago. The metropolitan infection rate was 235.4 infections per 100,000 residents."