Special Report

This is the County in the Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 25, 2021 3:15 am

Though vaccine distribution is well underway across the United States, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 33,741,500 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, which covers parts of Nebraska and Iowa, a total of 116,738 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 12,649 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,313 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Omaha-Council Bluffs is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Omaha metro area comprises eight counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Douglas County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 71,755 infections in Douglas County, or 12,929 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Douglas County than they are across all of the Omaha area, however. There have been a total of 129 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Douglas County, in line with 128 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of July 20, 2021.

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