Special Report

COVID-19: This is the Most Dangerous County in the Salisbury, MD-DE Metro Area

Samuel Stebbins

Published: June 11, 2021 5:00 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 33,056,400 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Salisbury metropolitan area, which covers parts of Maryland and Delaware, a total of 40,042 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 10,035 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 10,104 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Salisbury metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Sussex County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 26,072 infections in Sussex County, or 11,876 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Sussex County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Salisbury 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 226 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Sussex County, compared to 204 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Salisbury metro area.

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

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