A year ago, health authorities announced the first confirmed U.S. Covid-19 case in Snohomish County, Washington, near Seattle. Less than eleven months later, the virus reached an isolated Hawaiian enclave established more than a century ago for patients with leprosy, now called Hansen’s disease.
It appears to be the last U.S. county to file a coronavirus case, according to a Wall Street Journal review of state records and data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Since the first reported case, Covid-19 has run through the United States, infecting at least 24 million Americans and killing more than 400,000. The virus spread from large cities to sparsely populated rural counties before finally reaching even the most remote areas who worked diligently to keep the virus at bay.
To identify the last of the more than 3,000 counties that appear to be affected by the virus, The Journal reviewed data from Johns Hopkins and individual states to verify that Covid-19 has reached every county in the 48 contiguous states and Hawaii. Alaska has no formal counties, but its coronavirus data board shows cases in all districts and census areas of the state for which the state reports.
Throughout the year, the list of most affected counties generally went from small towns to small ones before the current winter increase.