Special Report

This is the County in the St. Louis, MO-IL 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 St. Louis metropolitan area, which covers parts of Missouri and Illinois, a total of 301,831 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,758 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 10,313 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though COVID-19 infections per capita are in line with the national average across St. Louis , there are parts of the metro area where this is not the case.

The broader St. Louis metro area comprises 15 counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Clinton County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 5,831 infections in Clinton County, or 15,496 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Clinton County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the St. Louis 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 244 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Clinton County, compared to 186 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire St. Louis metro area.

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

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