After adding over 934,000 new cases throughout the last week, the U.S. now has more than 42.1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19. There have been more than 670,000 COVID-19-related deaths — the highest death toll of any country.

New cases continue to rise at a steady rate. In the past week, there were an average of 45.1 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 Americans — essentially unchanged from the week prior, when there were an average of 49.5 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

While COVID-19 has spread to nearly every part of the country, cities continue to be the sites of major outbreaks. Experts agree that the virus is more likely to spread in group settings where large numbers of people routinely have close contact with one another, such as colleges, nursing homes, bars, and restaurants. Metropolitan areas with a high degree of connectivity between different neighborhoods and a large population may be particularly at-risk.

The Waterloo-Cedar Falls, IA, metro area consists of Black Hawk County, Bremer County, and Grundy County. In the past week, there were an average of 31.0 new coronavirus cases every day per 100,000 Waterloo residents, less than the national figure. The metro area’s average daily case growth in the most recent week is a decrease from the week prior, when there were an average of 37.9 daily new cases per 100,000 Waterloo residents.

The spread of coronavirus depends on a variety of factors and can vary even between neighboring counties. Within the Waterloo-Cedar Falls metro area, COVID-19 is growing the slowest in Black Hawk County. There were an average of 28.9 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in Black Hawk County during the past week, the least of the three counties in Waterloo with available data.

Case growth in the Waterloo metro area is relatively uniform at the county level. In Grundy County, for example, there were an average of 42.8 new cases per day per 100,000 residents in the past week — the most of any county in Waterloo yet relatively in line with the case growth rate in Black Hawk County.

While Black Hawk County has the slowest case growth in the Waterloo area, it does not have the lowest incidence of cases overall. As of September 23, there were a total of 14,442.6 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents in Black Hawk County, the third fewest of the three counties in the metro area. For comparison, the U.S. has so far reported 12,985.5 cases per 100,000 Americans nationwide.

In order to slow the spread of COVID-19, city and county governments have ordered the closure of thousands of consumer-facing businesses. These measures have led to widespread job loss and record unemployment. In Black Hawk County, unemployment peaked at 12.1% in April 2020. As of June 2021, the county’s unemployment rate was 5.2%.

To determine the county in every metropolitan area where COVID-19 is growing the slowest, 24/7 Wall St. compiled and reviewed data from state and local health departments. We ranked counties according to the average number of new daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the seven days ending September 23. To estimate the incidence of COVID-19 at the metropolitan level, we aggregated data from the county level using boundary definitions from the U.S. Census Bureau. Population data used to adjust case and death totals came from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey and are five-year estimates. Unemployment data is from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and is not seasonally adjusted.

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

Rank in MSA	County	Population	New daily cases per 100,000, week ending September 23	New daily cases per 100,000, week ending September 16	Cumulative cases per 100,000	Cumulative deaths per 100,000
1	Black Hawk County	132,393	28.9	36.8	14,442.6	252.3
2	Bremer County	24,864	36.0	34.1	13,083.2	261.4
3	Grundy County	12,299	42.8	57.1	12,911.6	284.6

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