Special Report

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

Samuel Stebbins

Published: September 26, 2021 4:15 am

With the ongoing surge of the delta variant, COVID-19 continues to spread through the United States. To date, 42,163,561 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 673,728 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 462,545 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 15,265 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 12,887 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater than they are nationwide, some parts of the metro area are safer than others.

The broader Tampa metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents — and of them, Pinellas County in Florida has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 129,906 infections in Pinellas County, or 13,562 for every 100,000 people.

Though Pinellas 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 244 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Pinellas County, above the 227 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 Sept. 23, 2021.

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