These Are the Counties in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

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 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area, located in Washington, a total of 354,764 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 9,312 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 15,314 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue 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 Seattle metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Pierce County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 102,157 infections in Pierce County, or 11,881 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Pierce County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Seattle 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 115 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Pierce County, compared to 103 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area.

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

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