Special Report

This is the County in the Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 25, 2021 4:45 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 Waterloo-Cedar Falls metropolitan area, located in Iowa, a total of 20,844 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 12,252 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 Waterloo-Cedar Falls is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Waterloo metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Black Hawk County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 16,536 infections in Black Hawk County, or 12,432 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Black Hawk County than they are across all of the Waterloo area, however. There have been a total of 238 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Black Hawk County, in line with 242 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area.

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

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