PA County Fully Vaccinated Percentage: 04/16/2021

[modrepub]

So I got tired of having to try and figure out the PA vaccination rates and tried to do something myself. The principle reason was the PA Health Dept dashboard doesn't post Philadelphia data (https://www.health.pa.gov/topics/disease/coronavirus/Pages/Cases.aspx).

I'm somewhat handy with GIS and R so I just downloaded the PA Heath Dept raw data and tacked on Philadelphia County. This map uses data from approximately 04/16/21. The average % vaccinated county rate is about 23.6% of the eligible population (16+). The 16+ data is 2019 estimated Census data, which is the most recently available data I could pull. The PA Health Dept site appears to use the total county est 2019 population and not the vaccine eligible population. The county colors were chosen such that the 2 lighter blue colors are below the mean across all of PA's counties and the remaining darker blues are above the mean. My choice but I think it's more meaningful if presented this way (caveats to follow).

Data Caveats:

I started to find issues with the reported data when I started poking around in it. I haven't heard these communicated to the general public so I'll try to add a few things I noticed.

It appears county totals may include non-residential vaccination numbers. The state's data includes an "out-of-state" category that is substantial (in the hundreds of thousands). Philadelphia County, which includes a count on its dashboard (https://www.phila.gov/programs/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19/data/vaccine/), shows about 1/3 of the fully vaccinated are nonresidents. That's a big portion of the fully vaccinated category. Who knows how other counties are reporting this data (how many out of county residents are included in their totals).

So when you're reading these maps keep in mind there's no way of telling if they truly reflect a true fraction of the folks you will encounter in your public travels. In other words, be wary of % population vaccinated numbers that may not truly represent the fraction of the population that is fully vaccinated. That's because the percentage may be based on estimated total populations values that are either wrong or out of date. County/state totals may also not reflect nonresident vaccination rates which could be substantial. It's probably important to remember folks under 16 are generally not eligible to be vaccinated (if you hang around with that crowd).

Just my thoughts, to be taken with many grains of salt.


This map will self destruct in 31 days

[abqtommy]

1. Thanks for your very productive efforts.

[cyclonefence]

2. Yes, thank you

I live in Bucks Co. My husband and I are both over 70 with serious concomitant health problems, which put us in the 1A category. We registered with the state and county health departments. We tried to sign up with our pharmacy, our physicians, and the local hospital. All of them told us they had no waiting lists, and no vaccine. My pulmonologist, who told me that getting covid would be a death sentence for me, could not get us signed up.

In early April, a woman my husband plays bridge with asked him if we'd been able to get vaccinated, and she gave us the phone number of a family practice in Newtown, about 15 minutes from us. We got an appointment and got both shots (Moderna) with no waiting.

The whole process in PA has been mismanaged from the very beginning. There were rumors of vaccine available further west, but here in SE PA, where population is denser, people--old people and sick people--are still having trouble getting vaccinated. I hope, when this is all over, someone will figure out a better way for the next pandemic. If my husband didn't play bridge, we'd probably still be waiting.

[modrepub]

4. Very Haphazard

Your experience is pretty similar to my own family's. My mother and step-father got vaccinated in March. He was at the pharmacy picking up a prescription and was asked if he wanted to sign up. Just dumb luck. I did a little searching in late March after other people I work with and know started saying they were finding shots. Most of those worked over the internet and just got lucky and found something. My wife's company finally gave up after trying to help some of their more vulnerable employees find appointments and did a mass vaccination a week ago. My son found the rest of us appointments after someone where he works told him of a mass clinic near us. We got our first shot on Friday.

I'd say your experience just reenforces the fact that those who are most successful just kind of lucked into it via their own social network. In the end, patience and persistence pays off. Not that that's a great strategy but PA has one of the lowest per capita government employee counts in the country. It's not a surprise to me that this has gone so poorly. Too many folks in Harrisburg don't want to have or pay for a functioning government.

I think the best we can hope for is next time there will be less of a distribution bias. SE PA was not receiving as many vaccines early as other parts of the state. Having spent over a decade working in Harrisburg for the state I can tell you that SE PA is an area most folks in the Capitol (and most of this state) have no fondness for. I don't think the diversion of vaccine to other parts of the state was "an accident" or some type of oversight.

[FakeNoose]

3. K & R

Thanks!