  This article explores the territorial differences in the onset and spread of
COVID-19 and the excess mortality associated with the pandemic, across the
European NUTS3 regions and US counties. Both in Europe and in the US, the
pandemic arrived earlier and recorded higher Rt values in urban regions than in
intermediate and rural ones. A similar gap is also found in the data on excess
mortality. In the weeks during the first phase of the pandemic, urban regions
in EU countries experienced excess mortality of up to 68pp more than rural
ones. We show that, during the initial days of the pandemic, territorial
differences in Rt by the degree of urbanisation can be largely explained by the
level of internal, inbound and outbound mobility. The differences in the spread
of COVID-19 by rural-urban typology and the role of mobility are less clear
during the second wave. This could be linked to the fact that the infection is
widespread across territories, to changes in mobility patterns during the
summer period as well as to the different containment measures which reverse
the causality between mobility and Rt.
