New rural vaccinations rose by a third last week; the rural vaccination rate is still lower but increased faster than metro

Vaccination rates as of Aug. 19, 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.

New coronavirus vaccination in rural and urban counties increased dramatically last week. Rural counties still have a lower overall vaccination rate than metropolitan areas, but the rural rate for new vaccinations was higher than in metro counties last week.

During the week of Aug. 13 to 19, about 237,000 rural Americans became fully vaccinated for the coronavirus, up about one-third from the previous week's 172,000 rural residents. That bumped the overall rural vaccination rate up half a percentage point to 37.6%, Tim Murphy and Tim Marema report for The Daily Yonder. The overall metro rate was 49.1%, up one-fourth from the previous week's rate.

"The increase in new vaccinations was widespread" Murphy and Marema report. "Of the nation’s 1,976 nonmetropolitan counties, 1,450 (73%) had more vaccinations last week than they did two weeks ago. In metropolitan counties, 995 of 1,165 counties (85%) had higher numbers of vaccinations."

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