Rural vaccinations getting spotty? Overall rate slowed last week, but sped up in more than half of rural counties

Rural/urban vaccination rates as of Aug. 12, compared to the 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.

The pace of new coronavirus vaccinations in rural counties "slowed a bit last week but still exceeded the rate of new vaccinations in mid-July," Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. Arizona had the biggest percentage point increase in its rural vaccination rate, followed by states hard-hit by the Delta variant: Arkansas, Missouri and Louisiana.

From Aug. 6 to Aug. 12, some 172,315 rural residents completed their coronavirus vaccinations, compared to 260,295 two weeks ago. "The current rate of completed vaccinations in rural counties is 37.1% of the total rural population. That’s an increase of 0.4 percentage points from two weeks ago," Murphy and Marema report. "Metropolitan counties increased their vaccination rate by 0.5 percentage points last week to 48.5% of the metropolitan population."

Click here for an interactive county-level map, regional analysis and charts from the Yonder.