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| Rural/urban vaccination rates as of June 28, compared to national average and adjusted to account for vaccinations not assigned to specific counties. Map by The Daily Yonder; click the image to enlarge it or here for the interactive version. |
Lower coronavirus vaccination rates in rural America and the increasing threat of the Delta variant could lead to a summer surge in the disease, Margy Eckelkamp reports for AgWeb.
As of June 28, only 34 percent of eligible rural Americans are vaccinated, compared with a national average of 67% and a 44.3% rate in metropolitan counties, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. The rural vaccination rate rose only 0.6 percentage points from the week before, compared to a 1.1 percentage-point increase in the metro vaccination rate.
The lower rural vaccination rate goes hand-in-glove with higher hospitalization and death rates, National Rural Health Association CEO Alan Morgan said in a recent AgriTalk podcast. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that rural Americans face a 28% higher mortality rate from Covid-19 compared to urban counties, he said, and noted rural hospitals consistently tell him that unvaccinated people account for nearly all of the hospitalized Covid-19 patients in their small towns.
Any summer surge will likely be regional, not nationwide, and worse in areas with a vaccination rate under 35%, said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on NBC News' "Meet the Press" on Sunday. He noted that 99.2% of people who have died Covid-19 were unvaccinated.
"No vaccine is perfect," Fauci said. "But when you talk about the avoidability of hospitalization and death ... it’s really sad and tragic that most all of these are avoidable and preventable." Fauci and Morgan say higher vaccination rates are the best way to head off a potential surge, and also urge people to wear masks indoors if they're unvaccinated or living in an area with a low vaccination rate.
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