Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: June 11, 2021 5:30 am

Last Updated: June 11, 2021 4:50 pm

Though vaccine distribution is well underway across the United States, the novel coronavirus continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 33,056,400 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the New York-Newark-Jersey City metropolitan area, which covers parts of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, a total of 2,384,499 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,928 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,104 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across New York-Newark-Jersey City is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader New York metro area comprises 25 counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Richmond County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 74,822 infections in Richmond County, or 15,782 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Richmond County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the New York 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 387 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Richmond County, compared to 327 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of June 9, 2021.

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