Special Report

These Are the Counties in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: August 5, 2021 4:15 am

With slowing vaccination rates and the emergence of the Delta variant, COVID-19 continues to spread through the United States. To date, 34,811,492 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 608,288 have died as a result. On a per capita basis, the U.S. has one of the highest known infections rates in the world.

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, located in Florida, a total of 322,737 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,651 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 10,640 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are closely in line with the national per capita infection rate in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, there are still parts of the metro area where the per capita infection rate is relatively low.

The broader Tampa metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents — and of them, Hernando County in Florida has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 17,259 infections in Hernando County, or 9,447 for every 100,000 people.

Though Hernando County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Tampa metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 264 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Hernando County, above the 158 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of August 3, 2021.

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