Special Report

These are the Counties in the Birmingham-Hoover, AL Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 30, 2021 5:30 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 Birmingham-Hoover metropolitan area, located in Alabama, a total of 142,839 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 12,453 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,471 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Birmingham metro area comprises seven counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Jefferson County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 83,482 infections in Jefferson County, or 12,651 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Jefferson County than they are across all of the Birmingham area, however. There have been a total of 240 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Jefferson County, in line with 235 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Birmingham-Hoover metro area.

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

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