Special Report

This Is the County in the Raleigh, NC Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: October 27, 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, 45,027,013 Americans have been infected with the virus — and 728,404 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 Raleigh metropolitan area, located in North Carolina, a total of 169,755 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 13,032 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 13,763 cases per 100,000 people.

The lower than average per capita COVID-19 infection rate across Raleigh is being driven by one area in particular.

The broader Raleigh metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents — and of them, Wake County in North Carolina has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 127,856 infections in Wake County, or 12,217 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Wake County have the lowest per capita infection rate in the Raleigh metro area, it also has a relatively low per capita fatality rate.

There have been a total of 84 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Wake County, below the 97 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Raleigh metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of Oct. 25, 2021.

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