Special Report

This Is the County in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, MS Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 27, 2021 2:30 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 Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula metropolitan area, located in Mississippi, a total of 66,522 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 17,001 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 Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula than they are nationwide, some parts of the metro area are safer than others.

The broader Gulfport metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents — and of them, Hancock County in Mississippi has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 7,728 infections in Hancock County, or 16,565 for every 100,000 people.

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

There have been a total of 270 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Hancock County, compared to 267 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula metro area.

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

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