This Is the County in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

As the omicron variant spreads, new daily cases of COVID-19 have hit new highs in the United States. To date, there have been 53,001,400 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metropolitan area, which covers parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, a total of 1,480,085 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 15,520 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 16,200 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though COVID-19 infections per capita are in line with the national average across Chicago-Naperville-Elgin , there are parts of the metro area where this is not the case.

The broader Chicago metro area comprises 14 counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Jasper County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 6,912 infections in Jasper County, or 20,664 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Jasper County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Chicago 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 308 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Jasper County, compared to 208 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Dec. 30, 2021.

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