Special Report

These Are the Counties in the Grand Rapids-Wyoming, MI Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: December 21, 2021 4:15 am

Despite the ongoing vaccination effort, new daily cases of COVID-19 are on the rise once again in much of the United States. To date, there have been 50,102,100 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Grand Rapids-Wyoming metropolitan area, located in Michigan, a total of 191,843 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 18,263 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 15,314 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Grand Rapids metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Ottawa County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 53,384 infections in Ottawa County, or 18,795 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Ottawa County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Grand Rapids 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 214 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Ottawa County, compared to 197 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Grand Rapids-Wyoming metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Dec. 17, 2021.

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