Weekly Update: U.S. #COVID19 vaccination levels BY COUNTY

I was planning on only updating the county-level vaccination graph monthly, but given the attention this has received via high-profile folks like David Frum and Paul Krugman, I've decided to post updates weekly.

With the more aggressive Delta variant now spreading quickly among the unvaccinated in the U.S., 85% of the total population seems to indeed be the more likely threshold which will be needed to achieve herd immunity.

As a reminder:

• I go by FULLY vaccinated only. This is defined as those who have received either 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

• For most states I'm using the daily data from the Centers for Disease Control, but there are some where the CDC is either missing county-level data entirely (Hawaii, Texas, some counties in California) or where the CDC data is less than 90% complete at the county level:
  • For Hawaii, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia, I'm relying on data from the COVID Act Now Risk & Vaccine Tracker database.
  • For Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico and Texas, I'm using their COVID vaccine dashboards set up by the state health departments.
  • For California, I'm using the CDC data for most counties and the state health dept. dashboard data for the 8 small counties which the CDC isn't allowed to post data for.
  • For Massachusetts, I'm using the CDC data for most counties but this municipality-level data for Barnstable, Dukes & Nantucket counties, which the CDC only has partial data for.
• I've also managed to work the 5 major U.S. territories into the graph by adding them down the right side (they aren't sized by population but the bullets are at least at the right height for each). I can't put them in the main graph because none of them vote for President in the general election.

Worth noting:

• At first glance, the graph may look identical to prior weeks, but the R^2 is gradually increasing:
  • On May 25th, R^2 stood at 0.2650 (granted, I had some methodology errors at the time)
  • On July 3rd, R^2 stands at 0.4216
  • On July 11th, R^2 stands at 0.4270
  • On July 20th, the R^2 stood at 0.4363
  • On July 27th, the R^2 stood at 0.4408

• After Kalawao County, HI (pop. 86) and Nantucket, MA (pop. 11,400), Los Alamos County, NM (pop. 14,700) is on the verge of becoming the 3rd county to break the 85% herd immunity target (It's conceivable that HI won't be achieved until an area hits an even higher rate, but 85% seems to be what many experts think at the moment), with Bristol Bay Borough, AK (pop. 900) right behind it.

• Miller County, AR (pop. 43,200) has the lowest vaccination rate in the country at just 8.9%. It's one of 4 counties nationally which have vaccinated less than 10% of their total populations, along with Slope County, ND (pop. 750), McPherson County, SD (pop. 2,400) and McPherson County, NE (pop. 500).