Special Report

These Are the Counties in the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: January 11, 2022 4:45 am

As the omicron variant spreads, new daily cases of COVID-19 have hit new highs in the United States. To date, there have been 57,535,900 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Boston-Cambridge-Newton metropolitan area, which covers parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a total of 787,135 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 16,359 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 17,586 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though Boston-Cambridge-Newton has fewer COVID-19 infections per capita than the national average, there are parts of the metro area where this is not the case.

The broader Boston metro area comprises seven counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Essex County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 159,515 infections in Essex County, or 20,424 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Essex County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Boston 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 352 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Essex County, compared to 274 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Boston-Cambridge-Newton metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Jan. 7, 2022.

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