Special Report

This is the County in the New Bern, NC Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 25, 2021 3:45 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 New Bern metropolitan area, located in North Carolina, a total of 11,549 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 9,201 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 10,313 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though New Bern 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 New Bern metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Jones County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 909 infections in Jones County, or 9,376 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Jones County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the New Bern 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 289 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Jones County, compared to 135 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire New Bern metro area.

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

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