Special Report

This Is the County in the Athens-Clarke County, GA Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: April 27, 2022 3:30 am

Since the first case of the omicron variant was detected in the U.S., new daily cases of COVID-19 have hit new highs. To date, 80,112,263 Americans have been infected with the virus — and over 980,000 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 Athens-Clarke County metropolitan area, located in Georgia, a total of 48,568 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 23,657 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — in line with the national rate of 24,487 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are closely in line with the national per capita infection rate in Athens-Clarke County, there are still parts of the metro area where the per capita infection rate is relatively low.

The broader Athens metro area comprises four counties or county equivalents — and of them, Oglethorpe County in Georgia has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 3,224 infections in Oglethorpe County, or 21,807 for every 100,000 people.

Though Oglethorpe County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Athens metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 379 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Oglethorpe County, above the 244 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Athens-Clarke County metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of April 25, 2022.

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