Special Report

This Is the County in the Hattiesburg, MS Metro Area With the Most COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: May 17, 2022 2:30 am

There have been 81,417,100 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States to date – and that number continues to grow.

In the Hattiesburg metropolitan area, located in Mississippi, a total of 42,565 cases of COVID-19 have been reported. Adjusted for population, there have been 28,612 confirmed infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 24,885 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Hattiesburg metro area comprises three counties or county equivalents, which can include independent cities — and of them, Forrest County has the most COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 22,076 confirmed infections in Forrest County, or 29,233 for every 100,000 people.

Not only does Forrest County have the most COVID-19 infections per capita in the Hattiesburg 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 417 coronavirus deaths for every 100,000 people in Forrest County, compared to 362 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Hattiesburg metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of May 13, 2022.

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