Special Report

This Is the County in the Cape Girardeau, MO-IL Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 27, 2021 2:15 am

Following a months long surge driven by the delta variant, new daily cases of COVID-19 are falling once again in the United States. To date, 45,027,013 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 728,404 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 Cape Girardeau metropolitan area, which covers parts of Missouri and Illinois, a total of 14,871 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 15,309 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 13,763 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Cape Girardeau than they are nationwide, there are still parts of the metro area where the per capita infection rate is relatively low.

The broader Cape Girardeau metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents — and of them, Alexander County in Illinois has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 725 infections in Alexander County, or 11,099 for every 100,000 people.

Though Alexander County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Cape Girardeau metro area, its per capita fatality rate is closely in line with the regional average.

There have been a total of 184 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Alexander County, compared to 190 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Cape Girardeau metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 25, 2021.

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