Special Report

This is the County in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: September 28, 2021 5:45 am

As the delta variant continues to surge, COVID-19 continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 42,301,000 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, located in Florida, a total of 462,545 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 15,265 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 12,929 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Tampa metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Hillsborough County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 230,210 infections in Hillsborough County, or 16,695 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Hillsborough County than they are across all of the Tampa area, however. There have been a total of 183 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Hillsborough County, compared to 227 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Sept. 24, 2021.

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