Rural America, lagging in Covid-19 booster vaccinations, faces higher death rates from the disease than urban areas

Percentage of county population with Covid-19 booster vaccination
(Map by Daily Yonder; click to enlarge. For the interactive version, with data, click here.)

Covid-19 booster rates are lower in America's rural counties than in metropolitan counties, reports Tim Marena of the Daily Yonder. Fewer than a third of rural Americans are boosted. That fact, combined with other health disparities, has meant that death rates from the disease continue to be  higher in rural areas; last week, cumulative rural death rates for the pandemic were 36 percent higher.

Carrie Henning-Smith, the deputy director of the Rural Health Research Center at the University of Minnesota, told Marena that those health disparities "include an older age structure, reduced access to health care, and more underlying health conditions among the population."

Vaccination rates vary greatly by region. "Half of the adult residents of rural Maine and 43% of rural Minnesotans have received at least one booster, Marena reports, citing CDC data. Garfield County, Nebraska, boasts the highest rural booster rate with 84% of the adult population having received a dose. Rates in the South are generally lower.

With much of the vaccine rollout and signups happening online, a lack of internet access could "disenfranchise people who … might not have access to reliable broadband internet,” said Henning-Smith. Those who live in poverty in rural area may also lack the transportation necessary to get to a health clinic, plus 40% of the 103 rural hospital closures between 2010 and 2021 occurred in counties with high poverty.