COVID-19: This State Has Done the Worst Job With Vaccination

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 1, 8:26AM EST · Published Feb 28, 9:10AM EST

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COVID-19: This State Has Done the Worst Job With Vaccination — © Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The spread of COVID-19 has slowed considerably from six weeks ago when the “holiday surge” peaked. Deaths in America have reached 517,204, about 20% of the world total. However, the daily increase in the U.S. has dropped to about 2,000 deaths a day from 4,000 in mid-January. Confirmed cases have hit 28,833,039, about 25% of the world total. The daily U.S. increase runs below 100,000 some days, after a peak of nearly 250,000.

There is a three-way race to stanch the spread of the disease. First, variants have started to appear. The CDC publicly tracks three of these and reports numbers to the public on its “US COVID-19 Cases Caused by Variants” page. Today, these variants are in 45 states. One, from the U.K. appears to spread much faster than the others, which, epidemiologists worry, may cause another surge in the disease.

Next, there is the matter of testing. More than one scientist believes the actual number of cases in the U.S. is double the official figure. Weak testing protocols have been blamed. Without widespread testing and tracing, the course of infection is hard to track, and thus control.

Finally, vaccination remains the ultimate way in which COVID-19 will be brought under control. However, the rate has been slow, particularly compared to the pace the Trump Admiistttioan forecast in December. The Biden Administration said it has procured 200 million vaccines that will be available by July. And, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are about to be joined by one from Johnson & Johnson, which, in theory, should speed the vaccination process.

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Only 15% of the adult population in the U.S. has gotten at least one dose. A much smaller percentage–7.1% of adults–have gotten two shots. On a raw county basis, 96,402,290 doses have been delivered and 72,806,180 shots have been given within the U.S. and among its territories. The figures have lagged behind other developed nations, particularly the U.K. and Isreal. However, the U.S. sits ahead of most EU nations as measured by the percent of adults who have received vaccines.

The state that has done the worst jobs vaccinating its residents is Utah. Among the adults, 12% have received at least one dose. Only 5.5% have been given two shots. A total of 820,950 doses have been delivered in Utah and 687,876 shots have been given.

At the other end of the spectrum, in Alaska, 22% have been given one dose, and 13% have been given two shots.

Utah has posted 370,770 confirmed cases and 1,929 deaths. Salt Lake County accounts for many of these with 138,506 confirmed cases and 762 deaths.

The reason Utah sits behind other states may have to do with shipments. The Desert News reports:

Utah’s COVID-19 vaccine shipments that were delayed last week due to winter storms nationwide should be caught up by Thursday, and state officials are hoping the federal government’s allotment of first doses soon will increase by more than 50% with the expected approval of a new vaccine.

The state’s residents must hope that is true.

Click here to read about the states doing the best job of rolling out the vaccine.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.