The role played by population

To be sure, it is not very surprising for rural areas to report more cases than urban areas. 73% of India’s population lives in rural areas, which for this analysis, include districts with more than 60% of population living in rural areas according to the 2011 census. Urban areas, or districts where less than 40% of the population is rural, house only 14%. However, urban areas likely report more cases generally because of a higher population density – which makes it easier for the infection to spread – or possibly even due to better testing. Naturally, cases per million population have always been higher in urban areas. However, the gap between urban and rural areas has reduced. Cases per million in urban areas were 3.8 times that in rural areas in the first four days of May. This ratio has been lower than this only in August and September last year.