Abstract
In 2020, New Jersey experienced two distinct waves of COVID-19. Municipality-level data reveal patterns that are masked by the county-level data: nearby municipalities can have COVID-19 case rates that are very different from each other and from the average rates within their county. Although the number of COVID-19 cases is only a single indicator of the pandemic's effects on communities, the large variation across municipalities on this indicator supports the importance of examining municipal-level variation on other indicators of COVID-19 impact. This working paper, subject to edits, describes the methods used to collect, clean and analyze the data provided in the research brief Municipal variations in COVID-19 case rates in New Jersey released April 5, 2021, by the Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs.