COVID-19: This Is the Best State at Fully Vaccinating Its Residents

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Mar 16, 8:20AM EDT

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COVID-19: This Is the Best State at Fully Vaccinating Its Residents — © thenationalguard / Flickr

While the growth of COVID-19 cases across the United States has slowed, it remains a tremendous danger. The daily growth of confirmed cases has slowed to less than 100,000 from much more than twice that amount three short months ago. New fatal cases per day now run as low as 1,000, which is much as three-quarters lower than the peak. Nevertheless, there have been 29,719,808 confirmed cases so far, which is about 25% of the world’s total. Fatal cases in the United States number 541,030, about 20% of the global total.

A new forecast from one of the top COVID-19 research organizations, The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, is that 598,523 people will die of COVID-19 by July 1. However, the number could be higher if America reopens too quickly, according to the same analysis.

One of two challenges to further slowing the spread of the disease is the variants, some of which may spread faster than the version that infected most people from last January until recently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks three of these for the public: the B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1 variants. These variants are now in all 50 states, and epidemiologists believe that there are more than just three.

The other challenge is the opening up of parts of the United States. Texas, the second-largest state by population, is a case in point. The governor has dropped the state’s mask mandate, allowed a renewal of social gatherings and opened businesses. Public health officials worry this may cause a fourth wave of the disease.
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Vaccination rates have risen quickly in the past two weeks. The Biden administration says it will have enough vaccines for all Americans by May 1. At this point, 21% of Americans have received at least one dose and 12% have been fully vaccinated. “Fully vaccinated” depends on which vaccine a person is given. With the Moderna and Pfizer versions, it is two shots. With Johnson & Johnson, it just one. Nationwide, 135,847,835 doses have been delivered and 109,081,860 shots have been given.

The state that has done the best job fully vaccinating its population is Alaska at 18%. It is also at the top of the list of states that have given at least one dose with a figure of 28%. From the 472,395 doses delivered to Alaska, 337,141 shots have been given, for a ratio of 71%, well below the national average.

Why has Alaska done so well? One reason the state points to is that its Native American and military populations have been vaccinated quickly because of government programs. Each of these groups makes up a large portion of Alaska’s population. Nevertheless, for a state so vast and with some of its population living in areas far from its cities, the number is impressive.

Click here to read about the county where the most people have died of COVID-19.
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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.