Special Report

This Is the County in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metro Area With the Least COVID-19

Joe Raedle / Getty Images News via Getty Images

To date, 88,027,926 Americans are confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19 — 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 Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metropolitan area, which covers parts of Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, a total of 2,435,905 COVID-19 cases have been reported to date. Adjusted for population, there have been 25,543 reported infections for every 100,000 people in the area — below the national rate of 26,906 cases per 100,000 people.

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

The broader Chicago metro area comprises 14 counties or county equivalents — and of them, Newton County in Indiana has the fewest COVID-19 cases per capita. So far, there have been a total of 2,727 confirmed infections in Newton County, or 19,454 for every 100,000 people.

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

There have been a total of 492 coronavirus-related deaths for every 100,000 people in Newton County, above the 259 COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 across the entire Chicago-Naperville-Elgin metro area.

All COVID-19 data used in this story are current as of July 17, 2022.

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

Rank Geography COVID cases per 100,000 people Total cases Deaths per 100,000 people Total deaths
1 Newton County, IN 19,454 2,727 492 69
2 Lake County, IN 23,751 115,631 381 1,856
3 Porter County, IN 24,517 41,199 342 575
4 Cook County, IL 25,027 1,307,317 279 14,556
5 Lake County, IL 25,035 176,150 202 1,424
6 DeKalb County, IL 25,827 26,912 193 201
7 DuPage County, IL 26,485 246,768 187 1,746
8 Kane County, IL 26,758 142,041 216 1,145
9 Will County, IL 26,820 184,710 228 1,572
10 Grundy County, IL 27,508 13,894 277 140
11 McHenry County, IL 27,588 84,913 160 491
12 Kendall County, IL 28,635 35,687 132 164
13 Jasper County, IN 28,671 9,590 448 150
14 Kenosha County, WI 28,733 48,366 384 647

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