Special Report

These are the Counties in the Albuquerque, NM Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 30, 2021 3:30 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 34,256,300 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Albuquerque metropolitan area, located in New Mexico, a total of 80,410 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 8,836 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 10,471 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though Albuquerque has fewer COVID-19 infections per capita than the national average, there are parts of the metro area that appear to be higher risk than others.

The broader Albuquerque metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Valencia County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 7,035 infections in Valencia County, or 9,262 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Valencia County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Albuquerque 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 159 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Valencia County, compared to 149 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Albuquerque metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of July 28, 2021.

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