Rural Covid-19 death rate below metro rate for second time

Map: Daily Yonder #usafacts  Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  Created with Datawrapper

For the first time since June and the second time in the pandemic, the non-metropolitan Covid-19 death rate was below the metropolitan rate, Sarah Melotte reports for The Daily Yonder.

"It was only the second week in nearly two and a half years [the length of the pandemic] that the weekly rural death rate did not exceed the metropolitan death rate, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention," Melotte writes.

"Rural counties reported 431 Covid-19 deaths last week, a 7.5% drop from two weeks ago," Melotte reports. "There were 35 fewer deaths last week compared to two weeks ago, and the rural death rate was 0.94 deaths per 100,000 residents." Last week, it was 3% lower than the urban rate of 0.96 deaths per 100,000.

"Although death rates in rural communities dropped last week, infection rates increased by 6% and still surpass urban rates," Melotte reports. "Rural America reported 38,002 new infections last week, a rate of 82.5 new infections per 100,000 residents. In urban counties, the infection rate was 77.6 new infections per 100,000 residents, virtually no change since two weeks ago. . . . Because the CDC does not report infections detected through home testing, the actual infection rates are likely much higher."