Coronavirus COVID-19 Percentage of Population Tracker, By Country

Updated January 20, 2022     15 Comments
Originally posted March 28, 2020

COVID-19 Trackers

This page is in the Code Graveyard; this data is outdated and was last updated in 2021.

This table tracks coronavirus COVID-19 confirmed cases as a percent of the population for each country.

(This is a ratio of confirmed coronavirus cases to the total population for each country, then multiplied by 100 to convert to percentage.)

Countries are listed in order by those with the highest percentage of the population that has been confirmed with coronavirus.

If you prefer to see a visual, see the bar chart here.

(To see the rate of increase for global COVID-19 cases, see this, or rate of increase for global COVID-19 deaths, see this. Or see coronavirus deaths as a percent of the population, or more coronavirus statistics here.)

See my notes below on why this is a more accurate view of the severity of the coronavirus problem. Or jump down to see the source of this data.

Note: Data as of June 19, 2002.

COVID-19 CASES AS PERCENT OF POPULATION
COUNTRY POPULATION # CASES # CASES AS PERCENT OF POPULATION
Seychelles 88,340 21,854 24.73851 %
Montenegro 622,345 137,401 22.07795 %
Maldives 395,650 86,088 21.75863 %
Andorra 84,000 15,338 18.25952 %
Bahrain 1,569,439 276,030 17.58781 %
San Marino 31,477 5,473 17.38730 %
Slovenia 2,067,372 307,503 14.87410 %
United Arab Emirates 4,975,593 738,487 14.84219 %
Israel 8,883,800 1,315,317 14.80579 %
Kuwait 2,789,132 412,297 14.78227 %
Serbia 7,344,847 1,043,758 14.21075 %
Georgia 4,630,000 657,753 14.20633 %
Luxembourg 607,728 79,720 13.11771 %
Jordan 6,407,085 840,117 13.11231 %
Estonia 1,320,884 171,395 12.97578 %
Lithuania 2,944,459 366,481 12.44646 %
Costa Rica 4,516,220 551,144 12.20366 %
West Bank and Gaza 3,800,000 447,032 11.76400 %
Panama 4,176,873 469,998 11.25239 %
Uruguay 3,477,000 390,915 11.24288 %
Mongolia 3,086,918 336,508 10.90110 %
Portugal 10,281,762 1,079,341 10.49763 %
Croatia 4,089,400 426,613 10.43217 %
Cyprus 1,189,265 121,995 10.25802 %
Oman 2,967,717 304,025 10.24441 %
Liechtenstein 35,000 3,584 10.24000 %
Switzerland 8,484,100 854,591 10.07285 %
Colombia 49,648,685 4,928,578 9.92691 %
North Macedonia 2,082,958 196,762 9.44628 %
Armenia 2,968,000 280,294 9.44387 %
Suriname 492,829 46,313 9.39738 %
Malta 403,000 37,445 9.29156 %
Lebanon 6,848,925 633,355 9.24751 %
Kosovo 1,800,000 160,530 8.91833 %
Austria 8,847,037 773,540 8.74349 %
Monaco 38,682 3,358 8.68104 %
Qatar 2,781,677 237,867 8.55121 %
Ireland 4,853,506 413,734 8.52444 %
Hungary 9,982,000 833,115 8.34617 %
Latvia 2,217,969 183,239 8.26157 %
Cuba 11,338,138 932,768 8.22682 %
Botswana 2,254,126 181,856 8.06769 %
Slovakia 5,455,000 433,709 7.95067 %
Bulgaria 7,000,039 539,619 7.70880 %
Belize 314,522 23,990 7.62745 %
Saint Lucia 160,922 12,206 7.58504 %
Malaysia 31,528,585 2,384,542 7.56311 %
Poland 38,500,000 2,901,674 7.53682 %
Cabo Verde 508,659 38,035 7.47750 %
Bosnia and Herzegovina 3,323,929 243,914 7.33812 %
Moldova 4,324,000 315,414 7.29450 %
Paraguay 6,375,830 460,322 7.21980 %
Bahamas 301,790 21,580 7.15067 %
Tunisia 10,589,025 710,773 6.71236 %
Kazakhstan 15,340,000 994,464 6.48282 %
Greece 10,727,668 692,197 6.45245 %
Denmark 5,797,446 370,046 6.38291 %
Albania 2,866,376 177,536 6.19374 %
Namibia 2,128,471 128,239 6.02494 %
Azerbaijan 8,303,512 498,630 6.00505 %
Fiji 875,983 51,701 5.90206 %
Belarus 9,685,000 570,006 5.88545 %
Dominica 72,813 4,153 5.70365 %
Libya 6,461,454 349,210 5.40451 %
Grenada 107,818 5,734 5.31822 %
Saint Kitts and Nevis 51,134 2,546 4.97907 %
Canada 37,058,856 1,686,625 4.55121 %
Antigua and Barbuda 86,754 3,888 4.48164 %
Barbados 285,653 12,773 4.47151 %
Bolivia 11,353,142 506,150 4.45824 %
Guyana 779,004 34,362 4.41102 %
Guatemala 13,550,440 587,687 4.33703 %
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 104,217 4,418 4.23923 %
Singapore 3,547,809 145,120 4.09041 %
Honduras 9,587,522 372,179 3.88191 %
Trinidad and Tobago 1,389,858 53,887 3.87716 %
Norway 5,314,336 196,142 3.69081 %
Iceland 353,574 12,455 3.52260 %
Dominican Republic 10,627,165 369,700 3.47882 %
Eswatini 1,354,051 46,361 3.42387 %
Kyrgyzstan 5,776,500 179,775 3.11218 %
Ecuador 17,084,357 513,026 3.00290 %
Jamaica 2,934,855 87,232 2.97228 %
Morocco 33,848,242 941,863 2.78261 %
Nepal 28,951,852 804,652 2.77928 %
Finland 5,518,050 149,897 2.71648 %
Thailand 67,089,500 1,772,838 2.64250 %
Brunei 395,027 10,356 2.62159 %
Sri Lanka 21,513,990 531,070 2.46849 %
Gabon 1,545,255 33,442 2.16417 %
Saudi Arabia 25,731,776 547,890 2.12924 %
Sao Tome and Principe 197,700 3,675 1.85888 %
Djibouti 740,528 13,383 1.80722 %
El Salvador 6,420,744 110,188 1.71613 %
Timor-Leste 1,154,625 19,707 1.70679 %
Zambia 13,460,305 209,505 1.55647 %
Japan 126,529,100 1,715,059 1.35547 %
Venezuela 28,870,195 390,045 1.35103 %
Mauritius 1,265,303 16,621 1.31360 %
Equatorial Guinea 1,014,999 12,840 1.26503 %
Mauritania 3,205,060 36,645 1.14335 %
Lesotho 2,108,132 21,524 1.02100 %
Zimbabwe 13,061,000 132,333 1.01319 %
Spain 46,723,749 473,360 1.01310 %
Vietnam 89,571,130 860,860 0.96109 %
Burma 53,414,374 486,851 0.91146 %
Rwanda 11,055,976 99,128 0.89660 %
Chile 18,729,160 164,855 0.88020 %
Cambodia 14,453,680 116,407 0.80538 %
Turkey 82,319,724 645,860 0.78458 %
Mozambique 22,061,451 151,097 0.68489 %
South Korea 51,635,256 342,396 0.66311 %
Uzbekistan 27,865,738 180,566 0.64799 %
Kenya 40,046,566 251,959 0.62917 %
Gambia 1,593,256 9,946 0.62426 %
Senegal 12,323,252 73,865 0.59940 %
Algeria 34,586,184 205,199 0.59330 %
Iran 81,800,269 475,639 0.58146 %
Australia 24,992,369 143,204 0.57299 %
Afghanistan 29,121,286 155,739 0.53479 %
Ghana 24,339,838 129,258 0.53106 %
Congo (Brazzaville) 3,039,126 15,514 0.51048 %
Cameroon 19,294,149 98,402 0.51001 %
Comoros 832,322 4,184 0.50269 %
Laos 6,368,162 31,736 0.49835 %
Angola 13,068,161 62,789 0.48047 %
France 66,987,244 275,217 0.41085 %
Ethiopia 88,013,491 358,739 0.40760 %
Papua New Guinea 6,064,515 24,041 0.39642 %
Egypt 80,471,869 317,585 0.39465 %
Togo 6,587,239 25,865 0.39265 %
Guinea-Bissau 1,565,126 6,129 0.39160 %
Uganda 33,398,682 125,094 0.37455 %
Bhutan 699,847 2,617 0.37394 %
Malawi 17,563,749 61,712 0.35136 %
Guinea 10,324,025 30,572 0.29612 %
Cote d'Ivoire 21,058,798 60,982 0.28958 %
Benin 9,056,010 24,560 0.27120 %
Nicaragua 6,465,513 15,737 0.24340 %
Central African Republic 4,844,927 11,469 0.23672 %
Netherlands 17,231,017 39,405 0.22869 %
Somalia 10,112,453 21,269 0.21032 %
Haiti 11,123,176 22,933 0.20617 %
Madagascar 21,281,844 43,616 0.20494 %
Tajikistan 9,100,837 17,484 0.19211 %
Burundi 11,175,378 19,555 0.17498 %
Syria 22,198,110 38,705 0.17436 %
Liberia 3,685,076 5,803 0.15747 %
South Sudan 8,260,490 12,184 0.14750 %
Nigeria 154,000,000 209,173 0.13583 %
New Zealand 4,252,277 4,992 0.11740 %
Eritrea 5,792,984 6,773 0.11692 %
Mali 13,796,354 15,603 0.11310 %
Sudan 35,000,000 39,550 0.11300 %
Burkina Faso 16,241,811 14,686 0.09042 %
Sierra Leone 7,650,154 6,396 0.08361 %
Congo (Kinshasa) 70,916,439 57,269 0.08076 %
Italy 60,431,283 44,443 0.07354 %
Taiwan* 22,894,384 16,336 0.07135 %
Pakistan 184,404,791 125,718 0.06818 %
Tanzania 41,892,895 26,034 0.06214 %
United Kingdom 66,488,991 39,413 0.05928 %
Chad 10,543,464 5,067 0.04806 %
Niger 15,878,271 6,160 0.03880 %
Yemen 28,498,687 9,512 0.03338 %
Mexico 126,190,788 34,651 0.02746 %
Argentina 41,343,201 5,226 0.01264 %
China 1,392,730,000 108,891 0.00782 %
Marshall Islands 58,413 4 0.00685 %
South Africa 49,000,000 2,877 0.00587 %
Solomon Islands 652,858 20 0.00306 %
India 1,352,617,328 31,293 0.00231 %
Samoa 196,130 3 0.00153 %
Vanuatu 292,680 4 0.00137 %
Micronesia 112,640 1 0.00089 %
Belgium 11,422,068 12 0.00011 %
Bangladesh 156,118,464 156 0.00010 %
USA 327,167,434 336 0.00010 %
Romania 19,473,936 13 0.00007 %
Ukraine 45,415,596 25 0.00006 %
Germany 82,927,922 38 0.00005 %
Peru 31,989,256 2 0.00001 %
Indonesia 242,968,342 4 0.00000 %
Iraq 38,433,600 0 0.00000 %
Brazil 209,469,333 1 0.00000 %
Philippines 106,651,922 0 0.00000 %
Sweden 10,183,175 0 0.00000 %
Russia 144,478,050 6 0.00000 %
Czechia 10,625,695 0 0.00000 %

Sources:
COVID-19 confirmed case numbers from Johns Hopkins CSSE Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 Data Repository.
Population numbers from GeoNames, retrieved on 28 March 2020.

My Notes

Percentage numbers add some much-needed context to the scary “total numbers” which seem to be the only thing the media focuses on in order to hold viewers’ attention.

I was so tired of hearing the outrage over the USA’s supposed “numbers worse than Italy” regarding coronavirus cases when I know that our population in the USA is so much larger than Italy’s. I made this chart to track the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) cases as a percent of the population for each country. I think this gives a more accurate view of the severity of the problem.

For example, would you rather be in a room where 10 percent of the people have coronavirus, or would you rather be in a room where 40 percent of the people have coronavirus? You may say, “10 percent.” But the media poses things as: would you rather be in a room where 100 people have coronavirus, or where only 4 people have the coronavirus? You may say that you prefer the room with only 4 infected people.

But you can’t know the severity of the problem without knowing the total number of people in the room.

What if the total numbers of the people in the rooms are 1,000 (where 100 are infected), and 10 (where only 4 are infected)? Do the math: the group with only 4 infected people out of 10 means that 40 percent have the coronavirus. The group with 100 infected people out of 1000 means that only 10 percent of the people have it. So the room with only 4 infected people actually has a worse scenario because a higher percentage of its total population in infected.

Top ↑

See more:

We've 15 Responses

  2. August 25th, 2020 at 3:58 pm

    Re: I was so tired of hearing the outrage over the USA’s supposed “numbers worse than Italy”

    But according to your numbers, the USA now has an infection rate 4X higher than Italy. In fact, it has the highest rate among any industrialized countries – aside from San Marino whose small population creates a statistical outlier.

    So, do you feel any outrage is now finally justified?

    Reply ↓
    J Swanson

    • August 25th, 2020 at 6:57 pm

      The end of the sentence you quoted for context: “..when I know that our population in the USA is so much larger than Italy’s.”

      My point was about using absolute numbers when percentage numbers would’ve given a more precise comparison.

      Back in March 2020, I got tired of hearing that “USA numbers are worse than Italy” because they were specifically comparing absolute numbers. With over 327 million people here, our absolute numbers are expected to be higher. But I wanted to know percentage numbers and I could not find any health agency or news source reporting these percentage numbers so I made this to track it myself. Mainly to gauge how scared I should be. When I completed this tracker in March, my initial results were that our (USA) rate was lower than Italy’s. Not anymore.

      But our death rate still remains lower than in Italy, UK, Sweden and a few others (as of this writing). With the death rate remaining so low in most of the 50 states, I feel less scared. I couldn’t find these death rate numbers anywhere online when I made this back in March.

      To be clear, I was tired of hearing “absolute numbers outrage” not because I was upset at anybody else’s outrage but rather because I wanted these percentage/rate numbers for myself. I have no opinion on whether anyone else’s outrage is justified.

      Reply ↓
      Isabel

  3. August 25th, 2020 at 3:59 pm

    As another BTW, thanks for pulling this together. It’s very well done and very helpful. I do agree that total numbers are meaningless w/o some population context.

    Reply ↓
    J Swanson

  4. September 11th, 2020 at 5:29 pm

    I totally agree with you. The raw numbers mean nothing without comparing to the total population (per country, state, etc.). Thank you SO MUCH for putting this together and sharing it! I really appreciate it! 🙂

    Reply ↓
    Corinne Battle

  5. September 24th, 2020 at 11:17 pm

    Hi Isabel.
    Thank you for your work. I love your explanation in your notes about the room with 10 or 100 people with covid. Such an easy explanation to share with people.
    Do you have any statistics on the death rate as a percentage of people who have been diagnosed with covid? ie. % of people who are diagnosed with covid and survive?
    Kind regards.
    Renee

    Reply ↓
    Renee Grigg

  7. November 7th, 2020 at 10:31 am

    Thank you!! I feel the same about the absolute numbers and really just wanted %. Our only real issue at this point, as I see it, is the data on rate of testing. But this is so helpful and makes my nerd heart happy.

    Reply ↓
    Amy

  8. December 4th, 2020 at 11:30 am

    I would love to see some context with age brackets. So as a % of people in certain age brackets. I believe older people are more at risk and it would be helpful to see that in context. Appreciate your data and analysis

    Reply ↓
    Sally

  9. December 24th, 2020 at 4:16 pm

    Thank you for sharing this data. I know intuitively what you put into a much more scientific format… and thus more persuasive. And, yes, the media hype is all the more irritating that they do not likely even understand the numbers. Great example of the 100 in a room of 1,000 or 4 in a room of 10. Excellent. Thank you again.

    Reply ↓
    Eva

  12. July 14th, 2021 at 1:42 pm

    Hiya – great chart. However if you really want to feel a *lot* better, use the mortality rate as opposed to the cases rate, and then parse for “die with Covid” to “died from Covid”

    Reply ↓
    Pete

  14. August 20th, 2021 at 11:55 am

    Numbers are looking a little cooked these days. The US and Brazil have the #1 & #3 highest numbers of total cases yet this shows Brazil has 1 case? Both countries had (or still have) leaders and political factions who are demonstrably anti-science. This is the consequence. Don’t hide it.

    Reply ↓
    Fact-Checker

Questions and Comments are Welcome

Your email address will not be published. All comments will be moderated.

Please wrap code in "code" bracket tags like this:

[code]

YOUR CODE HERE 

[/code]