Special Report

This Is the County in the Kansas City, MO-KS Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 13, 2021 5:45 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, 43,792,254 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 703,599 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 Kansas City metropolitan area, which covers parts of Missouri and Kansas, a total of 282,697 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 13,419 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 13,385 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Kansas City metro area comprises 14 counties or county equivalents — and of them, Platte County in Missouri has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 5,785 infections in Platte County, or 5,854 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Platte County have the lowest per capita infection rate in the Kansas City metro area, it also has a relatively low per capita fatality rate.

There have been a total of 60 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Platte County, below the 170 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Kansas City metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 8, 2021.

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