Special Report

These Are the Counties in the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway, AR Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Samuel Stebbins

Published: May 18, 2022 5:00 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, 81,519,474 Americans are confirmed to have been infected with the virus — and over 1 million 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 Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metropolitan area, located in Arkansas, a total of 197,080 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 26,832 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — above the national rate of 24,917 cases per 100,000 people.

Though per capita cases of COVID-19 are higher in Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway than they are nationwide, some parts of the metro area are safer than others.

The broader Little Rock metro area comprises six counties or county equivalents — and of them, Perry County in Arkansas has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 2,523 confirmed infections in Perry County, or 24,443 for every 100,000 people.

Though Perry County has the lowest per capita infection rate in the Little Rock metro area, its per capita fatality rate is disproportionately high.

There have been a total of 358 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Perry County, above the 297 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of May 16, 2022.

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