Charts: 10 US counties with the most coronavirus cases (beyond N.Y. and N.J.)

A worker moved food onto the floor of the United Center in Chicago. The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago's food bank, will be utilizing the United Center as a satellite storage facility in response to the increased need for food during the coronavirus pandemic.Associated Press

As New York – the US region with the highest number of positive COVID-19 cases – may be seeing cases slightly level off, other areas across the country are seeing rapid increases in the number of people infected.

Below are charts that show counties outside of the New York and New Jersey area that have the highest number of positive coronavirus cases, and how the virus is trending there. While not in the top 10, Massachusetts’ Suffolk and Middlesex counties are at the 11th and 12th spots.

For reference, New York City has 67,552 cases; Cook County in Illinois, the top of this list, has 8,043. All numbers are as of the end of the day April 5.

Cases per 1,000

When normalized for population, the picture changes.

For reference, New York City had 8.5 cases per 1,000 people as of April 5. Orleans Parish, which houses New Orleans, is the only area that exceeds this, with 10.4 cases. Three parishes in Louisiana are in the top 10, as is Massachusetts’ Suffolk County.

How will these areas fare?

We can’t know what is going to happen as the virus continues to spread around the country. But, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, here are projections for the number of deaths in the states for the areas highlighted in the two charts above, as well as the hospital capacity for each of those states.

Click the right arrow to navigate through the states’ projections.

Want to see where your area stands? Explore the table below to see the number of cases and deaths in your county.

Heather Ciras contributed to this report.

---