Special Report

This is the County in the Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 25, 2021 5:00 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 Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metropolitan area, located in Florida, a total of 273,080 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,145 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 Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Orlando metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Osceola County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 49,191 infections in Osceola County, or 14,527 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Osceola County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Orlando area, it also has more deaths attributable to the virus per capita than the metro area as a whole. There have been a total of 156 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Osceola County, compared to 123 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford metro area.

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

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