Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL 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 Davenport-Moline-Rock Island metropolitan area, which covers parts of Iowa and Illinois, a total of 40,838 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,670 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 9,845 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Davenport-Moline-Rock Island is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Davenport metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Scott County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 19,770 infections in Scott County, or 11,475 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Scott County than they are across all of the Davenport area, however. There have been a total of 139 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Scott County, compared to 167 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 May 9, 2021.

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