In my previous post I recapped the data on the COVID-19 pandemic as experienced in Warren County, IL. In this post I’ll continue looking at the historical data but will shift to a wider focus and look at the Illinois and Iowa region surrounding Warren County. This analysis is made possible by the county level data provided by usafacts.org.

The Region of Interest

The collection of Illinois and Iowa counties I’m reporting consists of the recovery region that Warren County is grouped into along with a handful of counties in Iowa that sit on the Illinois and Iowa border. Only one county separates Warren County from Iowa. People that live here make fairly frequent trips to Burlington, IA and the Quad Cities area. Additionally, people working at Monmouth and Knox college as well as the Smithfield plant in Monmouth will commute to work from counties in this region. By looking at this set of counties we can get a feel for the risk of COVID-19 spreading due to regular travel to and from Warren County.

To get things started, let’s look at a map that visualizes the total number of confirmed cases for each of these counties as of July 31, 2020. You can mouse over the different counties to get their name and case counts.