Exploring the COVID Vaccination Progress in the United States
Ishaan Rao, OIDD 245
The past year of our lives has been defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. After spending almost a year in quarantine, we are beginning to see a large trend of citizens receiving vaccinations, and there is hope amongst the population of a return to normalcy. For a true return to normal life, it is essential that a critical mass of the population is immune from the coronavirus, which is more commonly known as reaching herd immunity. We will explore the CDC’s publicly available vaccination dataset to understand the following questions:
- What is the current progress of vaccinations across the United States?
- Which states are getting vaccinated the fastest, and which states are not getting vaccinated as fast as they need to?
- At what point in time will each state reach herd immunity, and how long will it take for the country to reach herd immunity?
Answering these questions will allow federal/state/local governments and the CDC to determine if their distribution process of vaccines is working and which states/areas of the country need more resources and attention. This will allow us to return to a healthy, productive country as fast as possible.
Vaccinations By State
First we will look at the current amounts of vaccinations per state to see the current status of COVID vaccinations (as of April 10, 2021).
We see that California, Texas, and New York lead the charge in vaccinating their population, which is expected as these states have the highest populations. Now, we will adjust for population and examine which states have the highest percentage of their population vaccinated.
This graph shows that each individual state is in a relatively similar spot to each of the other states, with a majority of states between 25% and 40% of their population vaccinated (at least one dose). New Hampshire, Palau, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Mexico are the only states with over 40% of their population vaccinated.
The above graph shows similar trends to the first graph in that California, Texas, New York are ahead of the pack in the total number of residents that are fully vaccinated.
Once we adjust for population we again see that a select few states are much closer to herd immunity than others (Connecticut, Palau, New Mexico, Maine, Alaska, etc.). Interestingly, South Dakota was not a state with at least 40% of their population vaccinated, but they are one of the few states with at least 25% of their population being fully vaccinated.
Vaccinations over Time
Now, we will explore how each of the states in the US have made progress with vaccinations over the past couple of months. This will show us which states are vaccinating their residents in a timely manner, and which are lagging behind the curve.
We first examine the number of people vaccinated per 100 people in each state over time.
Currently, only two states/territories have more than 45% of their population vaccinated (at least one dose), which are New Hampshire and the Republic of Palau. On the other hand, there are only 6 states and 4 territories with less than 30% of their population vaccinated (at least one dose). The states are Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wyoming. The territories are Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
Progress Towards Herd Immunity
According to Dr. Fauci, the most recent estimate on herd immunity was that approximately 80% of the population will need to be fully vaccinated to curb the spread of the coronavirus completely. We will now look at which states are closest to this level as of today.
This graph does not instill a lot of hope in our progress towards herd immunity. Currently, there are only 9 states and 2 territories with over 25% of their population that are fully vaccinated, meaning that no state is particularly close to having herd immunity. These 9 states are Alaska, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Vermont. The 2 territories are American Samoa and the Republic of Palau. Palau leads all states and territories with approximately one-third of their population being fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only one territory (Micronesia) has less than 10% of their population fully vaccinated.
Predicting When Certain States will Reach Herd Immunity
Our last exploration into the vaccination data is predicting when a select few states will reach herd immunity. We will examine 5 random states in this analysis: Pennsylvania (where we are right now), North Carolina (my home state), California (the most populous state), Maine (one of the most vaccinated states already), and New York (where I will live in a few months).
We used linear, quadratic, and exponential regressions to predict the date at which 80% of a state’s population will be fully vaccinated (i.e. reached herd immunity). We noticed that a linear or exponential regression doesn’t accurately capture the growth of vaccine distribution, so we used a quadratic regression to make predictions of when each of the following states would reach herd immunity, and we found the following.
Pennsylvania: December 25, 2021
North Carolina: December 21, 2021
California: January 4, 2022
Maine: October 25, 2021
New York: December 8, 2021
Clearly, we are a ways away from reaching herd immunity, but the good news is that almost every single state will reach 80% immunity by the end of the 2021 calendar year.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been slow but steady, and hopefully we will see a return to normalcy by the end of this calendar year. This analysis has shown that certain states need more help in their vaccine rollout, especially states in the South (Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, etc.). State and local governments in these areas should put more resources into educating their residents on why getting a vaccine is beneficial, as well as resources into obtaining more vaccines for their residents in general. States in the New England area (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc.) will be the fastest to herd immunity, as they are already significantly ahead in vaccination progress.
P.S.: All adults in Philadelphia are eligible to receive the vaccine on May 1, 2021. Make sure to get vaccinated as soon as possible!
