It’s the deadliest county in the deadliest state – 24/7 Wall St.

The growth of the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed in the United States. New confirmed cases have risen to over 200,000 a month ago. Yesterday they were up from 64,375 to 28,325,091, or 25% of the world total. Deaths in the United States increased by 4,000 days several days ago. Yesterday there were 1,660 to 502,493, or about 20% of the world total. However, many scientists and public health experts fear that new variants of the disease will spread faster and be more deadly. Three of them are now in the United States. And, as the number of cases of people infected with these diseases increases, there may be a race with vaccination rates to prevent another outbreak.

Scientists, medical experts and the media use several methods to measure the spread and presence of COVID-19. Among them are crude numbers of confirmed cases, cured cases, fatal cases and hospitalizations. Another is to measure cases and deaths per 100,000 people. This allows experts to make comparisons between counties and states, regardless of the size of the population.

Based on that figure per 100,000, the state with the most deaths is Kansas with an average of 1.23 over the past seven days. At the other end of the spectrum, Hawaii is 0.05. Of the counties in Kansas, the hardest hit is Scott County at 14.81, nearly double the figure for the next highest county in the state by the same measure.

Scott County is located in the mid-western part of the state, towards the Colorado border. Its main city is Scott City. The county has a population of 4,823, based on a U.S. Census estimate for 2019. That figure represents a 2.3% drop from 2010.

Almost 78% of the people of Scott County are white. Another 18% are Hispanic. The median household income in Scott County is $ 65,417, which is slightly lower than the national average. The poverty rate, at 7.9%, is much lower than the US figure.

As is the case in nearly every state across the country, the numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths have dropped in Kansas. Confirmed cases number 294,010 and increased by a modest 141 yesterday. In recent weeks, increases have exceeded 2,000 per day. Fatal cases in the state stand at 4,614 and did not increase yesterday. The daily increase in fatal cases was more than 100 times last month.

Kansas, like every other state, is on the run. At least three new variants are in the United States, and one is almost certainly spreading faster than the one that infected Americans over the past year. Statistics for the rate at which Kansas has vaccinated its adult population is in the lower half of all states at 12% compared to the national average of 13%.

Eventually, most of the disease will spread from Scott County to elsewhere in the United States, as it has for a year. In the meantime, the county must grapple with the horrific mortality from COVID-19.

Click here to read these are the most dangerous cities in the United States for COVID-19