Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Least Dangerous County in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: June 18, 2021 3:45 am

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination efforts, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the United States. To date, 33,151,678 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 594,888 have died as a result. On a per capita basis, the U.S. has one of the highest known infections rates in the world.

In the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island metropolitan area, which covers parts of Iowa and Illinois, a total of 42,098 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,000 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,133 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Davenport-Moline-Rock Island than they are nationwide, there are still parts of the metro area where the per capita infection rate is relatively low.

The broader Davenport metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents — and of them, Mercer County in Illinois has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 1,493 infections in Mercer County, or 9,514 for every 100,000 people.

Though Mercer County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Davenport metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 217 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Mercer County, above the 177 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Davenport-Moline-Rock Island metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of June 16, 2021.

These are all the counties in Illinois where COVID-19 is slowing (and where it’s still getting worse).