Explore a full-page version of the map.
An additional 361,000 rural Americans completed their Covid-19 vaccinations last week, raising the rural vaccination rate to 31.1%
A total of 13.2 million rural Americans are completely vaccinated for Covid-19 as of June 1, according to the Daily Yonder’s analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rural vaccination rate climbed by 1.0 percentage point last week.
As in previous months, the metropolitan rate grew at a faster pace – 1.8 percentage points.
The actual number of rural Americans who have completed their course of vaccinations is higher, but it’s impossible to say by how much. About 8% of the nation’s completed vaccinations aren’t assigned to a specific county, so we can’t determine whether those doses were administered in rural or urban settings.
The Daily Yonder’s study also omits Texas and Hawaii because the CDC did not provide data for these states. The two states have completely vaccinated nearly 11 million people, according to their state departments of health. (Texas, Hawaii)
Rural counties are not completing vaccinations as quickly as metropolitan counties, the Daily Yonder analysis shows. The graph below shows the percent of the population in metropolitan and rural counties that have completed their vaccinations. Two weeks ago, the gap between the higher metropolitan rate and the rural rate was 7.2 percentage points. Last week, the gap between the metro and rural vaccination rates grew to 8 percentage points.
All but three states had rural vaccination rates that were lower than their metropolitan rates. The exceptions were Arizona, where the rural vaccination rate was nearly 10 points higher than the metro rate; New Hampshire (6 points higher), and Alaska (5 points higher).
Of states with rural counties, Massachusetts had the largest gap between its rural and metropolitan rate, at 13 points. Nebraska and Florida each had a 12.7 point gap.
Connecticut, with only one rural county, had the highest rate of rural vaccinations, at 52.7%. Other states high on the rural vaccination list were New Hampshire (50.4%), Maine (48.6%), Arizona (44.6%), Maryland (43.5%), New York (42%), and Alaska (41.3%).
The Daily Yonder's coverage of Covid-19 vaccinations in rural America is supported in part by the Health Action Alliance.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
