Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the Charleston-North Charleston, SC Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: May 11, 2021 4:15 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 32,210,800 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Charleston-North Charleston metropolitan area, located in South Carolina, a total of 78,073 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,283 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 9,845 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Charleston metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Dorchester County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 17,694 infections in Dorchester County, or 11,381 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Dorchester County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Charleston 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 140 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Dorchester County, compared to 120 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Charleston-North Charleston metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of May 9, 2021.

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