Daily Yonder

Coronavirus Infection Rate, April 5

The novel coronavirus continued its march across rural America over the weekend. By Sunday night, April 5, two-thirds of rural counties had at least one case. Just over 200 rural counties have reported a death attributable to COVID-19.

The map above shows the spread of the virus and deaths as of Sunday night, April 5. Click on individual counties for more information, or explore a larger version of the map here.

• Green: Rural counties with no cases (665 counties)
• Orange: Rural counties with cases of COVID-19 (1,109 counties)
• Red: Rural counties with deaths (203 counties)
• Pink: Urban with no cases (61 counties)
• Gray: Urban with cases (575 counties)
• Black: Urban with deaths (528 counties)

These figures likely under-report the presence of the disease, according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas. They estimate that even in counties that report no COVID-19 cases, there is a 9 percent chance that the virus is present in that community.

If a county has one case, the Texas researchers predict that there is a 51 percent chance that the virus is spreading through the community.

From April 1 to 5, an additional 172 rural counties reported a case of coronavirus infection. Only 665—or about a third—of rural counties have yet to report a case of COVID-19. Only 61 urban counties—5 percent of all metro counties—say they have yet to find a COVID-19 case.

The number of reported COVID-19 cases continues to increase slightly faster in rural counties than in urban areas. Over the weekend (Friday through Sunday, April 3-5), cases in rural counties increased by 26 percent. Nationally, COVID-19 cases increased by 22 percent in the same time period.

In rural counties, there were 80 deaths reported over the weekend attributed to COVID-19.

Parts of rural America aren’t seeing the booms like in New York, D.C., and other urban areas, but cases in those parts of the country are now speeding up. Yet, more remote areas also tend to be the places that are already struggling in terms of what their health systems can bear.

Click here to see maps from the New York Times on the spread of COVID-19 in rural America.

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