Health and Healthcare

COVID-19: This Is The Safest County In The Safest State

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: March 28, 2021 9:00 am

The pace of the spread of COVID-19 has slowed across America. Increases in daily fatal cases and confirmed cases are about half what they were seven weeks ago. Nevertheless, 550,726 Americans have died, which is about 20% of the world’s total. Confirmed cases have reached 30,223,587, or about 25% of the global number.

The range of the severity of the disease by state and county varies considerably. In a very small number of the 3,143 U.S. counties and county-equivalents, not a single person has died of COVID-19.

The pace of the spread of the disease remains in part a race between vaccinations and the rising number of potentially dangerous variants. So far, 28% of the adult population has received at least one dose of vaccine, and 15% are fully vaccinated. While the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines require two shots, the one from Johnson & Johnson requires just one. According to The New York Times, 180,644,125 doses have been delivered in the United States and 140,180,735 doses have been administered.

Variants are among the dangers epidemiologist and public health officials worry about. At least one, first identified in the United Kingdom, could soon account for most new U.S. cases. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently tracks three variants for the public. They have been found in all 50 states, and a number of other variants have emerged that the CDC does not report on to the public.

Additionally, much of the country has “opened up,” and this has caused worries that there will be a fourth wave of the disease. The nation’s newspapers were filled with reports of large college parties in Florida with hundreds of people in close proximity without masks.

One of the ways public health officials measure cases and deaths is per 100,000 people. Using this method, the New York Times measures cases and deaths by state. The state with the fewest cases per 100,000 based on a daily average of the last seven days is Arkansas at six. At the far end of the spectrum, the number in New Jersey is 47.

There is more than one county in Arkansas where the figure is actually zero. These include Cleveland, Fulton, Lafeyette, Stone, and Woodruff counties. There have been no cases among them in the last seven days. Interestingly, none of these counties are clustered together. Rather, they are geographically spread across the state.

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