Special Report

These Are the Counties in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 20, 2021 3:00 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, 44,501,723 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 716,720 have died as a result. On a per capita basis, the U.S. has one of the highest known infections rates in the world.

In the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metropolitan area, located in Florida, a total of 1,257,837 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 20,719 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 13,602 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach than they are nationwide, some parts of the metro area are safer than others.

The broader Miami metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents — and of them, Palm Beach County in Florida has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 225,870 infections in Palm Beach County, or 15,617 for every 100,000 people.

Though Palm Beach County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Miami metro area, its per capita fatality rate is closely in line with the regional average.

There have been a total of 281 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Palm Beach County, compared to 289 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 18, 2021.

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