In the latest rural COVID-19 update from The Daily Yonder, the rural death rate from COVID has surged an extra 20%, even though the new infection rate has fallen off.
As of Jan. 29, the rural death rate is 17% higher than the metropolitan rate, with 150,440 rural Americans dead of COVID over the past two years.
From the update: “Rural counties reported 640,000 new infections last week, down about 14,000 from last week’s record-breaking tally. The 2% decline in new cases was the first weekly decrease in rural infections since Christmas.
New cases in metropolitan counties declined for the second week in a row, dropping about 16% to about 3,335,000.
Even though the infection is dropping nationally, the number of new cases remains extremely high compared to previous surges. In fact, the high rates make this week’s map a bit monotoned. Counties with more than 500 new cases per 100,000 residents are shown in black (rural) and gray (metropolitan). This constitutes all but a handful of counties nationally.”
According to the Yonder, Louisiana currently holds the top spot for most rural infections at 2,600 per 100,000, with Maine having the lowest at 432 per 100,000.
To read the rest of the update and see the data, click here.
SOURCE: The Daily Yonder
