Covid-19: Fewer people infected in rural, semi-urban India; more are dying

Infections in rural and urban areas are also gathering pace, but deaths are growing faster than urban centres

In its weekly press briefing on Wednesday, the government said that there were 146 districts across the country where the positivity rate—daily cases upon daily tests—is more than 15 per cent and 274 districts with a positivity rate between 5-15 per cent. So, nearly 56 per cent of the country’s districts have a positivity rate of over 5 per cent.

While the situation is grim in cities and urban districts—there is constant media coverage of how the administration is running out of criticl hospital supplies—a BS analysis shows that in rural and semi-urban India, at least in terms of deaths, the situation is much worse than the urban centres of the country.

District-wise data analysis shows that rural and semi-urban districts are lagging behind urban districts in terms of infections. While urban centres account for 66 per cent of the country’s total cases, the share of rural districts is just 18 per cent. In the last month, while urban districts added 40 per cent more cases, the addition in rural areas was a bit slower at 34 per cent. Semi-urban areas have grown even slower at 29.2 per cent.

However, deaths in rural areas are piling up faster. Even though urban districts still account for 71.9 per cent of India’s total deaths, their share in the last month declined from 72.6 per cent to 71.9 per cent. In contrast, the share of rural districts in the country’s total deaths increased from 14 per cent to 14.3 per cent—the highest since the start of the pandemic.

In September last year, rural areas accounted for 11.1 per cent of daily infections, whereas the share of urban centres was 75.5 per cent. The share of semi-urban centres during this entire period has lingered between 13.4-13.7 per cent since last year.

While the share of semi-urban areas has grown from 13.4 to 13.7 per cent in the last month, on a monthly basis, deaths have increased by 19.6 per cent.

Month over month, rural areas have recorded a 19.7 per cent rise in deaths, whereas deaths in the urban centres, despite constrained capacity, have increased by 16.6 per cent.

Juxtapose this with monthly growth in cases, and it shows that while fewer people are getting infected in rural areas and semi-urban areas, more are dying.

In terms of daily numbers, rural deaths now account for 22.7 per cent of total deaths. The daily semi-urban death share is lower at 13.5 per cent, indicating that deaths in rural areas are pacing ahead. Further analysis of daily case data shows that rural areas account for 20.3 per cent of the country’s daily caseload, which indicates that cases in rural areas may rise at a faster pace in the coming days. Here too, the share of semi-urban districts is a low 13.7 per cent.

Much like urban districts, in rural districts, too, the distribution of deaths is more skewed towards certain districts. The top 10 rural districts account for 38 per cent of the country’s total infections. Of these, six are in Maharashtra, two are in Chhattisgarh, and there is one each in Bihar and Jharkhand. In the case of semi-urban districts, 54 per cent of deaths are in the top-10 districts, five of which belong to Maharashtra; there is one each from Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The data for rural, urban and semi-urban districts has been calculated using Census 2011 population figures. Districts with over 30 per cent of the urban population have been classified as urban, whereas districts with less than 20 per cent urban population have been classified as rural.