Special Report

This Is the County in the Portland-South Portland, ME Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 19, 2021 3:45 am

Following a months long surge driven by the delta variant, new daily cases of COVID-19 are falling once again in the United States. To date, there have been 44,408,600 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Portland-South Portland metropolitan area, located in Maine, a total of 40,178 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 7,590 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 13,574 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though Portland-South Portland has fewer COVID-19 infections per capita than the national average, there are parts of the metro area that appear to be higher risk than others.

The broader Portland metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, York County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 17,216 infections in York County, or 8,477 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in York County than they are across all of the Portland area, however. There have been a total of 73 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in York County, in line with 72 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Portland-South Portland metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 15, 2021.

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