Special Report

This Is the County in the St. Joseph, MO-KS Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 27, 2021 4:15 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, 45,027,013 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 728,404 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 St. Joseph metropolitan area, which covers parts of Missouri and Kansas, a total of 19,003 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 14,989 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 13,763 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in St. Joseph than they are nationwide, there are still parts of the metro area where the per capita infection rate is relatively low.

The broader St. Joseph metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents — and of them, DeKalb County in Missouri has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 1,465 infections in DeKalb County, or 11,660 for every 100,000 people.

Though DeKalb County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the St. Joseph metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 263 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in DeKalb County, above the 211 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire St. Joseph metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 25, 2021.

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