Special report
December 18, 2021 4:45 a.m.
The US has reported more than 49.9 million confirmed COVID-19 cases as of December 16. More than 794,000 deaths from COVID-19-related causes have been reported – the highest death toll of any country.
The extent to which the novel coronavirus is spreading continues to vary greatly from state to state and from city to city. While the number of new cases every day is flattening or even decreasing in some parts of the country, it is increasing at a rapid pace in others.
Nationwide, the number of new cases is growing steadily. For the week ending December 16, there were an average of 35.6 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 Americans daily, essentially unchanged from the previous week when there were an average of 33.2 daily new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.
Metropolitan areas with high levels of mobility and large populations can be particularly prone to outbreaks. While science and medicine are still studying how exactly the virus spreads, experts agree that outbreaks are more likely to occur in group settings, where large numbers of people are routinely in close contact with one another. Cities with a high density of densely populated areas such as universities, prisons and nursing homes are particularly at risk.
The city with the highest seven-day average of new daily COVID-19 cases per capita is Illinois. Greater Danville, IL had the week of the 16th. Other cities where COVID-19 is growing fastest include St. Cloud, MN; Flint, MI; and Manchester-Nashua, NH.
To determine the metropolitan area in each state where COVID-19 is growing fastest, Wall St. has compiled and reviewed data from state and local health officials around the clock. We have ranked metropolitan areas based on the average number of new daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the seven days leading up to December 16. The data were aggregated from the county to the metropolitan level using US Census Bureau boundary definitions. The population data used to adjust the number of cases and deaths are from the US Census Bureau’s 2019 American Community Survey and are five-year estimates. Unemployment data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and are seasonally adjusted.
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