Special Report

This is the County in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: May 18, 2021 5:45 am

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 vaccination efforts, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the United States. To date, 32,496,486 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 578,257 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 Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area, which covers parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, a total of 374,701 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,533 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 9,933 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington than they are nationwide, some parts of the metro area are safer than others.

The broader Minneapolis metro area comprises 16 counties or county equivalents — and of them, Ramsey County in Minnesota has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 51,127 infections in Ramsey County, or 9,442 for every 100,000 people.

Though Ramsey County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Minneapolis metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 161 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Ramsey County, above the 126 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of May 16, 2021.

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