Since the world started to become more aware of an emerging pandemic back in January of 2019, the most prominent concern was waiting for scientists to develop an effective vaccine. Not that there are not one, but multiple effective Covid-19 vaccines in production, the wait now turns towards vaccinating enough of the general population to reach herd immunity.
Why is Herd Immunity for Covid-19 Important?
Reaching herd immunity is an important milestone because it dramatically lowers the rate of the coronavirus transmission so communities can once again feel safer to resume more normal social and economic activities.
Covid-19 vaccinations are still very much in the early stages of distribution with most counties in the United States focusing on vaccinating frontline workers and the most immunologically vulnerable first.
What are the Rates of Covid-19 Vaccine Acceptance in the U.S.?
Once vaccinations become more available to the general population, one important tracker in determining how quickly or readily the United States will reach herd immunity is the question of whether or not people will actually take the shot against Covid-19.
Carnegie Mellon University’s Delphi Lab, which specializes in epidemiological forecasting, has been tracking Covid-19 vaccination acceptance through the use of Facebook surveys.
As part of the lab’s tracking of “diverse, geographically-detailed, real-time indicators of COVID-19 activity”, Delphi has been tracking vaccine acceptance rates across U.S. counties. Each day, Delphi Lab has been surveying tens of thousands of Facebook users and asking them a broad range of Covid-19 questions to understand trends in social distancing, mask usage, mobility, retail and restaurant use, and vaccination acceptance.
Since January 6, 2021, Delphi Lab has been tracking vaccination acceptance among Facebook users that have not yet received a Covid-19 vaccination. From this question, Delphi Lab has been mapping out vaccination acceptance based on the proportion of survey respondents that answered “definitely” or “probably” to the question, “If a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 were offered to you today, would you definitely or probably choose to get vaccinated?“
Results are tabulated on a daily basis so visitors to the Covid-19 survey dashboard can see trends in answers to all the questions.
As of January 21, 2021, 833.1 people per 1,000 survey respondents are interested in getting the Covid-19 vaccine when it becomes available. This calculates out to an 83.31% overall acceptance rate for the vaccination.
Map of U.S. Acceptance Rates for a Covid-19 Vaccine
Rates of vaccination acceptance vary greatly from county to county.
As of January 21, 2021 the counties with the highest reported acceptance rates for a Covid-19 vaccine are:
- Arlington County, VA ~ 95.57%
- Marin County, CA ~ 92.39%
- Alexandria, VA ~ 92.16%
- Montgomery County, MD ~ 91.42%
- Santa Fe County, NM ~ 91.15%
- Loudoun County, VA ~ 90.50%
- San Francisco County, CA ~ 90.30%
- King County, WA ~ 90.23%
- District of Columbia County, DC ~ 90.17%
- San Mateo County, CA ~ 89.87%
As of January 21, 2021 the counties with the lowest reported acceptance rates for a Covid-19 vaccine are:
- Livingston County, LA ~ 49.07%
- Clayton County, GA ~ 50.94%
- Anderson County, SC ~ 55.66%
- Clay County, FL ~ 55.86%
- Gregg County, TX ~ 56.01%
- Mohave County, AZ ~ 56.07%
- Cumberland County, NC ~ 56.21%
- Coos County, OR ~ 56.25%
- Pickens County, SC ~ 56.99%
- Sumter County, SC ~ 57.29%
Explore the data from Delphi Lab by visiting the National COVID Survey Dashboard
