How does Thurston County’s COVID-19 case rate compare to other metro areas?
Thurston County metro area has one of the five lowest COVID-19 case rates in the country, according to a new study.
The Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater metro area ranked fourth best metro area when considering total case rates per 100,000 residents as of April 22, according to the study released by 24/7 Wall Street on Sunday.
The rankings suggest the Thurston County metro area has better responded to the COVID-19 pandemic than most other U.S. metro areas.
However, the news comes as the county is experiencing a weeks-long resurgence in cases.
According to the latest data from Friday, the case rate per 100,000 residents over a two-week period from April 1 to April 14 has reached 155 — more than double the most recent low of 77 recorded March 3-16.
To determine the rankings in the study, 24/7 Wall St. says they compiled case rate data from state and local health departments. To align the data with metro areas, the website says they aggregated data from the county level using boundary definitions from the U.S. Census Bureau.
With a case rate of 3,017.8 per 100,000 residents, the Thurston County metro area did better than nearly every other Washington state metro area, according to the study.
The only Washington metro area that beat out Thurston County in the study was the Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard area, which ranked No. 3.
However, the study also found that the Thurston County metro area had a lower death rate per 100,000 people — at 32.2 — than the Bremerton area, which had a rate of 38.4.
Notably, the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area ranked 17 with a case rate 4,619.6 and a death rate 69.7 per 100,000 residents. The Bellingham metro area also ranked in the top 10. However, the top two spots were held by metro areas in Hawaii:
- No. 10: Bellingham at 3,645
- No. 9: Grants Pass, Oregon, at 3,568.7.
- No. 8: Bangor, Maine, at 3,398.5.
- No. 7: Albany-Lebanon, Oregon, at 3,348.3.
- No. 6: Eugene-Springfield, Oregon, at 3,139.8.
- No. 5: Corvallis, Oregon, at 3,022.8.
- No. 4: Olympia-Lacey-Tumwater at 3,017.8.
- No. 3: Bremerton-Silverdale-Port Orchard at 2,689.2.
- No. 2: Urban Honolulu at 2,513.6.
- No. 1: Kahului-Wailuku-Lahaina, Hawaii, at 2,509.4.
