On the menu today: why the national media may not want to look too closely at which states rank at or near the bottom of the vaccination effort — by every measure; AstraZeneca unveils the results of its trial testing among Americans; and U.S. photographers have to go to Mexico to see how the U.S. Customs and Border Protection is treating migrants.
Which States’ Vaccination Programs Are Sputtering?
As I see it, there are three ways a state can say it’s doing a good job in vaccinating its residents in comparison to other states. The first is having a high percentage of the state population that is fully vaccinated — either two shots of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines, or one shot of Johnson & Johnson. The second is what percentage of the population is partially vaccinated. There’s a school of thought that because the first shots of Moderna and Pfizer give more than half the benefits, it makes more sense to give more people the first shot and deprioritize the second shot until later. (Remember, the first and second shots are the same stuff.)
The third measuring stick is what percentage of the shots they’ve been allocated have ended up in arms. Even if your state has a large population to work through, states and counties can efficiently get shots into arms as quickly as the doses get delivered and try to avoid backlogs.
Keep in mind, how many total doses a state receives each week is based upon the state’s population. Yesterday, California governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that his state has administered “more than 14 million doses, nearly 5 more than any other state,” which is true, but California has also received more vaccines from manufacturers than any other state. In fact, California has received 18.8 million doses, so that “more than 14 million” doesn’t look quite so spectacular.
As of this writing, California ranks 30th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of population that has received one shot, at 24 percent. (Keep in mind that eight states are all right around that percentage, so a slight adjustment could get California’s ranking to climb in the low 20s.) They rank 41st out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of population that is fully vaccinated. And California ranks 35th out of the 50 states and the District of Columbia in the percentage of received vaccines that are in people’s arms. Those figures aren’t disastrous or ranking near the bottom, but they’re not particularly good numbers, either.
We should also remember that when measuring by percentage of population vaccinated, less-populated states will have an advantage over larger, more populated states. As I noted a few weeks ago, each time you put shots into the arms of 215,000 adults in Texas, you’ve increased the state’s vaccinated percentage of adults by one percentage point. Each time you put shots into the arms of 215,000 adults in Rhode Island, you’ve increased the state’s vaccinated percentage by 25 percentage points.
As of this morning, the five states with the highest percentage of their adult populations fully vaccinated are:
- Alaska
- New Mexico
- South Dakota
- North Dakota
- Connecticut
The five states with the lowest percentage of their adult populations fully vaccinated are:
- Utah
- Washington, D.C.
- Texas
- Georgia
- Tennessee
(I included Washington, D.C., in these rankings, but not U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or allied countries served by the CDC, because those territories’ figures are often way higher or way lower than the other states, suggesting anomalous advantages or disadvantages. For example, tiny Palau has given 46 percent of its population one shot . . . with just 11,804 shots administered. Puerto Rico has administered just 52 percent of its allocated doses, 16 percentage points behind the worst-performing state, Georgia.)
The five states with the highest percentage of their adult populations getting at least one shot:
- New Mexico
- Alaska
- South Dakota
- Connecticut
- North Dakota
The five states with the lowest percentage of their adult populations getting at least one shot:
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Washington, D.C.
- Utah
- Tennessee
The five states with the highest percentage of allocated doses administered:
- North Dakota
- Wisconsin
- New Mexico
- Minnesota
- Massachusetts
The five states with the lowest percentage of allocated doses administered:
- Arkansas
- Washington, D.C.
- Alabama
- Tennessee
- Georgia
You’ll notice that a lot of the states performing well in one category are performing well in others. As usual, this does not fit any partisan’s preferred narrative of red states or blue states uniformly performing better. (Note that some states usually thought of as Democratic, such as Massachusetts, have a Republican governor, and vice versa.) Red southern states such as Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia are ranking near the bottom, but red upper-Midwestern states such as South Dakota and North Dakota are doing well, as is Alaska.
We’re now three months into the vaccination process. Every state and county has had plenty of time to work out the kinks, spot trouble areas in the logistics chain, and get more familiar with the process. Excuses shouldn’t fly anymore.
This morning, the Associated Press unveiled an analysis contending that states which broadened the eligibility for vaccines early on actually made things worse, because the vaccination programs didn’t have the capacity for the influx of appointment requests. There’s some logic to that argument.
But there are also some glaring exceptions to that phenomenon. Alaska ranks among the country’s best, and they expanded vaccination eligibility to anyone over the age of 16 back on March 9. Alabama is doing poorly in all of the categories, and they just expanded to age 55 and up today.
That AP analysis contends that “states such as South Carolina, Florida and Missouri that raced ahead of others to offer the vaccine to ever-larger groups of people have vaccinated smaller shares of their population than those that moved more slowly and methodically, such as Hawaii and Connecticut.” None of those (red) states stand out as sterling examples of vaccination rollouts, but they’re not at the bottom, either. Florida ranks 36th in percentage of population with at least one shot, 35th in percentage of a fully vaccinated population, and 40th in percentage of shots used. South Carolina ranks 39th in one-shots and fully vaccinated, and 31st in percentage used. Missouri ranks 40th in one shots given, 43rd in fully vaccinated residents, and 41st in percentage of doses used.
Meanwhile, over at the left-of-center Washington Monthly, Tim Noah wonders if the biggest media institution in the District of Columbia is averting its eyes from a truly subpar vaccination effort.
When I look at the statistics about Covid vaccinations, I feel like we’re back in the Bad Old Days, and I wonder why the Washington Post, even granting its de-emphasis on local news under Jeff Bezos, isn’t reporting to its readers just how comprehensive a failure D.C.’s Covid vaccination effort has been compared to that of other jurisdictions.
In many contexts, comparing D.C. to the 50 states puts D.C. at an unfair disadvantage. When looking at statistics about things like poverty and crime, D.C. should be compared to other cities, not states, because in geographic and demographic terms D.C. is a city. But when looking at statistics about Covid vaccinations, comparing D.C. to the states should put D.C. at an advantage. That’s because, compared to the states, D.C. is geographically small (69 square miles) and has a tiny population (about 700,000). By comparison, Rhode Island, the smallest state, is 1,214 square miles, or about 18 times bigger than D.C. Among the states, only Vermont and Wyoming have smaller populations than D.C., and they’re spread over much larger areas—9,623 square miles and 97,105 square miles, respectively.
All this means that even when you take into account that D.C. lacks a vote in Congress—yes, I’m for D.C. statehood—it ought to be a lot easier to vaccinate D.C. residents than the residents of any state. Yet, D.C. is lagging almost every state.
The Washington Post recently wrote that statehood for the District of Columbia is now at “the center of the national Democratic agenda.” How likely is it that some D.C. residents and progressives don’t want to talk about the District’s bottom-of-the-rankings performance in vaccine rollout, lest the perception of an incompetent city government undermine the argument for statehood?
AstraZeneca: Hey, Our Vaccine Works Fine on Americans!
Great news from the U.S. trial of the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine. Let’s get moving on this, FDA:
The AstraZeneca US Phase III trial of AZD1222 demonstrated statistically significant vaccine efficacy of 79% at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% efficacy at preventing severe disease and hospitalization.
This interim safety and efficacy analysis was based on 32,449 participants accruing 141 symptomatic cases of COVID-19. The trial had a 2:1 randomization of vaccine to placebo.
Vaccine efficacy was consistent across ethnicity and age. Notably, in participants aged 65 years and over, vaccine efficacy was 80%.
The vaccine was well tolerated, and the independent data safety monitoring board (DSMB) identified no safety concerns related to the vaccine. The DSMB conducted a specific review of thrombotic events, as well as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST) with the assistance of an independent neurologist. The DSMB found no increased risk of thrombosis or events characterized by thrombosis among the 21,583 participants receiving at least one dose of the vaccine. The specific search for CVST found no events in this trial.
You hear that, Europe? No increased risk. You guys just sacrificed a couple days’ worth of vaccinations over nothing.
‘Mask Up,’ the Vaccinated Public Officials Declared from Their Car
President Joe Biden is vaccinated. Vice President Kamala Harris is vaccinated.
Why would they need to wear masks when sitting in a car together? Or is it that they’re sitting in a presidential limousine with an unvaccinated photographer?
“Several hundred” White House staffers were vaccinated in January, shortly after Biden took office. Was the presidential photographer not among them? If he (or she) is going to be in contact with the president and vice president, why not?
President-elect Joe Biden, December 3: “Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days.”
President Biden, March 15: “Get that vaccine, and even after that, until everyone is in fact vaccinated, to wear this mask.”
ADDENDUM: How thoroughly has the Biden administration cut off media access to Customs and Border Patrol operations? To get photographs of how migrants are being treated while in U.S. custody, American media photographers need to travel into Mexico and use long telephoto lenses from the other side! Getty Images photographer John Moore:
I respectfully ask US Customs and Border Protection to stop blocking media access to their border operations. I have photographed CBP under Bush, Obama and Trump but now — zero access is granted to media. These long lens images taken from the Mexican side.