Rural seniors least likely to be vaccinated against Covid-19

Respondents polled between January and March 2022; fully vaccinated individuals are those who got either a single Johnson & Johnson shot or the two-shot sequence from Moderna or Pfizer. (Covid States Project chart)

Full vaccination against Covid-19 with a booster shot is one of the surest ways to protect oneself against severe outcomes from the coronavirus, especially among senior citizens, who tend to be more vulnerable to infection. Seniors who are totally unvaccinated and unboosted are disproportionately likely to be less-educated, lower-income, rural, and Republican. So says a new report by the Covid States Project, a consortium of Northeastern University, Harvard University and its medical school, Rutgers University and Northwestern University. 

Asked why they were unvaccinated, seniors mainly cited worries about side effects and a lack of trust in the process by which the vaccines were developed, researchers found. Many who had been vaccinated but who had not yet gotten a booster indicated they were open to it, but either did not feel it was urgent or cited obstacles such as transportation that kept them from doing so.

The Covid States Project looked into the question of seniors' coronavirus vaccination rates because they say the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is "significantly flawed" because it relies on poor record-keeping. Read more here.