The death rate from COVID-19 in rural America is now more than twice the death rate in urban areas, according to a new study.
The first wave of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 affected urban spaces for the first time with greater force, with the highest rates of infections and deaths, according to the study by the Center for Rural Policy Research published in September. .
But the next waves of the pandemic have devastated rural areas, where many other people are older, less healthy, unvaccinated, more likely to live in poverty, and where medical services are insufficient or overcrowded. exceed metropolitan spaces in early summer 2020, the study noted.
Infection and mortality rates were “highest in non-metropolitan third-wave spaces until their peak in January 2021,” according to the study. “Incidence and mortality rates are much higher lately in non-metropolitan counties than in metropolitan counties. “
Since the start of the pandemic, about 1 in 434 rural Americans have died from COVID, up to about 1 in 513 urban Americans. But in mid-September, metropolitan spaces had an average seven-day death rate of 0. 41 consistent with 100,000 people. while rural communities had an average mortality rate of 0. 85.
“There is a national disconnect between the belief and when it comes to Covid in rural America,” Alan Morgan, director of the National Rural Health Association, told NBC News.
“We’ve turned a lot of rural communities into death boxes,” Morgan added. “And there is no motion to address what we see in many of those communities, neither among the public nor among government officials. “
COVID occurrence rates in September were about 54% higher in rural spaces than elsewhere, according to Fred Ullrich, a studies analyst at the University of Iowa School of Public Health and a co-author of the new study. counties in 39 states, he said.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that COVID cases and deaths were particularly higher in Republican states than in Democratic states.
Of the 23 states whose number of new cases consistent with an increase in the capital rate compared to the U. S. average. In the U. S. , 21 voted for Donald Trump in November, the Post noted, and sixteen of them were among the 17 states with the lowest vaccination rates.
The paper is an “inevitable overlap of pandemic and politics” as Republicans battle mask and vaccine mandates.
This article was originally published on HuffPost and updated.
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