Special Report

These are the Counties in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, PA-NJ Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: July 30, 2021 5:15 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 34,256,300 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metropolitan area, which covers parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, a total of 92,850 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,125 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 10,471 cases per 100,000 people.

The higher than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Allentown metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Northampton County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 36,171 infections in Northampton County, or 11,986 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Northampton County than they are across all of the Allentown area, however. There have been a total of 238 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Northampton County, in line with 240 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of July 28, 2021.

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