An additional 1.25% of the rural population completed Covid-19 vaccinations over the last two weeks of January, according to a Daily Yonder analysis.
As of January 27, 49.0% of the rural population was fully vaccinated. In metropolitan counties, 62.5% of the total population is fully vaccinated.
Approximately 585,000 additional rural Americans completed their Covid-19 vaccination during the second half of January, bringing the total number of fully vaccinated rural residents to 22.6 million out of an approximate total of 46 million.
The graph below shows the rural and metropolitan vaccination rates over time. The bottom line of the graph shows the percentage-point gap between the metropolitan and rural rates. From January 14-27, the gap widened by 0.4 percentage points to 13.6 percentage points.
State Variation
Six states have vaccinated more than two-thirds of their rural population. These are Massachusetts (79.1%), Arizona (74.1%), Connecticut (73.8%), Maine (69.6%), Hawaii (66.7%), and New Hampshire (66.5%).
Four states had higher rural vaccination rates than metropolitan vaccination rates.
- In Arizona, the rural vaccination rate of 74.1% was 17.7 points higher than the metropolitan rate of 56.4%.
- In Massachusetts, the rural vaccination rate was 6.4 points higher (79.1% rural vs. 72.8% metropolitan).
- Alaska’s rural vaccination rate was 3.1 points higher than its metropolitan rate (58.2% vs 55.1%). And
- New Hampshire’s rural vaccination rate was 2.9 percentage points higher than its metropolitan rate (66.5% vs. 63.6%).
The bottom ranking states for rural vaccination rates are Missouri (38.7% of total rural, or nonmetropolitan, population), Georgia (39.9%), Alabama (40.1%), Louisiana (41.4%), Virginia (41.6%), Nebraska (42.6%), and Tennessee (42.6%).
County-Level Map
The map below shows county-level vaccination rates as a percentage of total population that is fully vaccinated. Click individual counties to see information about rates, population, and metropolitan/rural status.
State Rural and Metro Vaccination Rates
Click the column headers to sort the information by vaccination rates and other criteria.
Methodology
Data for this report is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, except for Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Texas, for which data is drawn from state health departments.
Rural is defined as nonmetropolitan, using the Office of Management and Budget’s list of Metropolitan Statistical Areas from 2013. We use rural-nonmetropolitan and urban-metropolitan synonymously.
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