Special Report

This Is the County in the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: November 16, 2021 4:30 am

Despite the ongoing vaccination effort, new daily cases of COVID-19 are beginning to rise once again in parts of the United States. To date, there have been 46,413,700 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis metropolitan area, located in Wisconsin, a total of 255,036 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 16,183 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 14,187 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Milwaukee metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Washington County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 23,522 infections in Washington County, or 17,484 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Washington County than they are across all of the Milwaukee area, however. There have been a total of 169 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Washington County, in line with 174 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Nov. 12, 2021.

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