Special Report

These are the Counties in the Chattanooga, TN-GA Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

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

In the Chattanooga metropolitan area, which covers parts of Tennessee and Georgia, a total of 67,601 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 12,246 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 Chattanooga is being driven by a high concentration of the virus in one area in particular.

The broader Chattanooga metro area comprises six counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Hamilton County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 46,260 infections in Hamilton County, or 12,938 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Hamilton County than they are across all of the Chattanooga area, however. There have been a total of 143 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Hamilton County, in line with 140 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Chattanooga metro area.

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

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