States Succeeding or Lagging With COVID Vaccinations

Betsey McCaughey, New York’s Republican lieutenant governor between 1995 and 1998 and a Newsmax Opinion contributor, wrote an article on Jan. 12 for the New York Post that correctly noted “only a third of doses shipped to the states are making it into people’s arms.”

Indeed, on the evening of Jan. 13, only 10,278,000 of the 29,380,000, or 35%, of the COVID vaccine doses dispatched to the states have been injected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “COVID Data Tracker.”

Prof. McCaughey, who has a doctorate in constitutional history from Columbia, and taught at Vassar and her alma mater, urged the federal government to seize control of vaccine administration because “most states are failing miserably.”

But she cited the vaccination rates for only three states:

• New York: 41%
• California: 28%
• Arizona: 24%

A calculation of the rates for the 50 states, District of Columbia, Indian Health Service and eight U.S. territories reveals which jurisdictions are succeeding and which are failing, in the critical race to vaccinate their residents.

The vital statistics for the four most populous states, which account for 111,692 of 319,611 of America’s SARS-CoV-2 deaths, or 35%, are:

Thus, Texas and Florida have significantly outperformed the national vaccination rate of 35%; New York has equaled it; and California has egregiously underperformed.

Other states who have outperformed the national vaccination average include:

Conversely, other states who have underperformed the national vaccination average of 35% include:

President Donald Trump and his public-health experts should immediately hold a teleconference with the governors of the 50 states, Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories to share best practices in speedily vaccinating the largest number of highly vulnerable Americans.

Indeed, the eight contiguous counties in metro New York City — Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester — have collectively suffered 32,218 fatalities, or 85% of the state’s 37,768.

Similarly, four counties in metro Los Angeles — Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino — have suffered 17,863 COVID deaths, or 71% of the California’s 25,023.

Therefore, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Vermont and other sparsely-populated rural states, who have individually suffered fewer than 1,500 SARS-CoV-2 deaths, should not receive the same proportional-to-population dosages as heavily-urbanized metro areas, where a hugely disproportional number of deaths have occurred.

Nevertheless, Alaska, with 176 COVID deaths, ranks first in vaccine distribution, with 20,692 per 100,000 residents.

By contrast, Texas, with 28,436 fatalities, ranks 48th in distribution, with just 6,843 doses received per 100,000.

Finally, President-elect Joe Biden should appoint a medical doctor as vaccine czar, who is an internationally-renowned, infectious-diseases expert, with decades of real-world experience in suppressing coronavirus, diphtheria, influenza, measles and other deadly respiratory diseases.

Mark Schulte is a retired New York City schoolteacher and mathematician who has written extensively about science and the history of science. Read Mark Schulte's Report's — More Here.