Special Report

This Is the County in the Scranton--Wilkes-Barre--Hazleton, PA Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 26, 2021 5:30 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, there have been 44,940,700 reported cases of the virus nationwide — and that number is growing every day.

In the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton metropolitan area, located in Pennsylvania, a total of 65,009 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 11,673 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 13,736 cases per 100,000 people.

Even though Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton 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 Scranton metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Luzerne County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 39,943 infections in Luzerne County, or 12,565 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Luzerne County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Scranton 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 287 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Luzerne County, compared to 267 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 22, 2021.

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