The Daily Yonder's coverage of Covid-19 vaccinations in rural America, including the role of business in supporting employees and communities, is supported in part by the Health Action Alliance.
The rural vaccination rate grew by 0.7 percentage points during the last week for which the Daily Yonder has complete data.
That brings the number of rural residents who are completely vaccinated for Covid-19 to 15,982,024, or 34.8% of the nonmetropolitan population of 46 million. Only people ages 12 and up are eligible for vaccinations.
This week’s report covers Tuesday, July 29, through Monday, July 5. (We’re a week behind because of the July 4 holiday and a delayed data release schedule at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)
New England continued to lead the nation in rural vaccination rates. Massachusetts has completely vaccinated two thirds of its rural residents (who number only about 99,000). Connecticut has vaccinated 61.3% of its 180,000 rural residents. New Hampshire and Maine have vaccinated 56.2% and 55.5% of their rural populations respectively.
On the other end of the spectrum, Georgia has completely vaccinated only 13.2% of its 1.8 million rural residents. But unallocated vaccinations, which are not assigned to a specific county, total 17% of the state’s population, so the actual rural vaccination rate could be higher.
Missouri and Arkansas, where a resurgence of Covid-19 in rural areas is driving up national infection numbers, are in the bottom tier of vaccination rates. Missouri ranks sixth from the bottom for its rural vaccination rate, which is 26.8% of the state’s 1.5 million rural residents. Arkansas ranks seventh from the bottom, with a rate of 28.6%.
The metropolitan vaccination rate of 45.4% is 10.6 percentage points higher than the nonmetropolitan rate.
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