Special Report

This Is the County in the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula, MS Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: September 21, 2021 4:30 am

As the delta variant continues to surge, COVID-19 continues to spread through the population. To date, there have been 41,395,400 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula metropolitan area, located in Mississippi, a total of 61,885 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 15,816 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 12,653 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Gulfport metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Jackson County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 22,868 infections in Jackson County, or 16,103 for every 100,000 people.

A relatively high infection rate does not necessarily mean COVID-19 related fatalities per capita are higher in Jackson County than they are across all of the Gulfport area, however. There have been a total of 236 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Jackson County, in line with 233 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Gulfport-Biloxi-Pascagoula metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Sept. 17, 2021.

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