Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the Champaign-Urbana, IL Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: March 10, 2021 2:15 am

Though vaccine distribution is well underway across the United States, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 28,711,000 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area, located in Illinois, a total of 21,242 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 8,878 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 8,776 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though COVID-19 infections per capita are in line with the national average across Champaign-Urbana , there are parts of the metro area where this is not the case.

The broader Champaign metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Ford County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 1,605 infections in Ford County, or 11,979 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Ford County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Champaign area, it also has more deaths attributable to the virus per capita than the metro area as a whole. There have been a total of 343 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Ford County, compared to 79 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Champaign-Urbana metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Mar. 8, 2021.

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