Ubuntu – WSL2/Mongodb: Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:27017 on Windows

I am coding along a tutorial and I am stuck at connecting MongoDB to Express. I successfully installed MongoDB (Mongo Compass and Mongo shell) and I was able to play around with it a little bit to familiarize myself with it. I am using a Windows 10 computer. I was able to create a database and add some documents and collections to it via the mongo shell and cmd prompt.

For the React app I am building, I am using VS Code as the IDE. VS Code is running on Ubuntu (WSL 2) and I cannot connect my app to the database. I have even tried using the MongoDB VS Code extension, but I still cannot connect to the databases available on compass. The Atlas clusters seem to connect just fine.

Below I am including screen grabs of the VS Code and Compass in case someone notices something off.

Here is the code where I try the connection. I have tested out the output on postman, but I am not getting any output in return. The server is running according to nodemon and the app crashes every time I run the get command on postman.

import express from "express";
import { MongoClient } from "mongodb"; //connects to the db

const app = express();
app.use(express.json()); // middleware to enable posting json

app.get('/api/articles/:name', async (req, res) => {
  const { name } = req.params;
  const client = new MongoClient('mongodb://127.0.0.1:27017');
  await client.connect();

  const db = client.db('react-blog-db');

  const article = await db.collection('articles').findOne({ name });
  res.json(article);
});

I have tried some of the options highlighted here, but none of them work for me.