Annualized 7-day D/100k Death Rates since vaccinations started.1 2
State % 18+ vac % 65+ vac given /have Dth rate %Chg Dth rate chg 12/29 01/26 02/23 03/02 03/09 03/16 03/23 03/30
Wyoming 35% 68% 0.74 -100.0% -288 288 414 72 99 90 18 18 0
Ohio 36% 72% 0.81 -99.7% -508 509 311 112 77 58 27 12 1
Idaho 34% 71% 0.81 -92.5% -216 233 155 96 88 67 105 67 18
Colorado 37% 77% 0.85 -91.4% -261 285 125 74 48 28 42 33 24
North Dakota 41% 77% 0.92 -89.5% -233 260 205 55 55 14 75 34 27
Rhode Island 39% 83% 0.87 -88.3% -448 507 477 108 148 153 133 113 59
Indiana 32% 72% 0.82 -87.6% -438 500 281 171 134 107 88 64 62
Alaska 44% 72% 0.71 -87.5% -49 56 211 21 84 21 7 42 7
New Mexico 48% 74% 0.93 -85.5% -425 497 487 234 239 224 75 107 72
Mississippi 32% 65% 0.7 -84.3% -340 403 487 133 256 193 168 84 63
Illinois 39% 73% 0.84 -83.7% -319 381 288 136 113 97 81 64 62
South Dakota 45% 84% 0.84 -81.5% -312 383 224 112 147 77 71 65 71
Connecticut 43% 83% 0.86 -81.4% -263 323 369 180 126 118 85 69 60
Pennsylvania 39% 73% 0.82 -81.4% -380 467 568 235 158 133 103 72 87
Minnesota 40% 82% 0.92 -81.0% -225 277 149 50 53 190 48 38 53
Wisconsin 40% 80% 0.95 -80.5% -196 244 260 107 128 71 44 54 47
Territory -79.7% -69 87 102 78 69 35 23 21 18
Washington 37% 78% 0.85 -79.2% -128 162 155 116 73 62 49 28 34
Oregon 34% 71% 0.82 -79.1% -66 83 119 30 78 96 53 26 17
Maine 41% 82% 0.86 -76.7% -89 116 151 35 163 81 8 23 27
New Hampshire 37% 83% 0.81 -75.9% -230 303 215 73 58 58 65 61 73
West Virginia 36% 66% 0.8 -74.3% -244 329 332 169 79 73 628 204 84
Arkansas 33% 64% 0.69 -74.0% -339 458 518 55 47 176 232 102 119
Nevada 35% 69% 0.86 -73.7% -242 328 501 289 108 149 137 90 86
Arizona 37% 71% 0.85 -72.7% -269 370 847 479 293 191 177 162 101
Maryland 38% 74% 0.8 -72.3% -176 243 271 131 122 72 78 100 67
Vermont 40% 86% 0.8 -72.2% -109 150 67 67 58 42 33 42 42
Iowa 39% 79% 0.89 -71.4% -190 266 264 226 159 127 137 45 76
Alabama 29% 62% 0.66 -71.1% -215 302 819 428 352 209 161 117 87
Michigan 35% 70% 0.82 -71.1% -227 320 311 121 84 79 58 67 92
Missouri 32% 66% 0.76 -70.0% -153 218 347 327 76 251 61 59 65
District of Columbia 31% 68% 0.72 -67.7% -155 229 199 118 155 126 44 66 74
Tennessee 31% 66% 0.73 -67.7% -229 338 522 188 179 105 53 75 109
Delaware 38% 78% 0.81 -64.2% -230 359 305 80 252 300 171 112 129
Oklahoma 40% 73% 0.75 -62.4% -136 217 377 219 403 220 116 0 82
Montana 38% 70% 0.79 -62.2% -137 220 444 78 122 63 49 122 83
Louisiana 33% 69% 0.75 -60.6% -164 270 334 199 163 137 175 126 107
US country 37% 73% 0.8 -58.1% -151 260 369 219 218 169 140 95 109
Kansas 38% 78% 0.77 -55.0% -109 199 186 401 140 123 93 41 89
South Carolina 34% 73% 0.8 -54.5% -123 225 319 306 221 189 117 148 102
Nebraska 40% 78% 0.84 -52.4% -119 226 170 127 92 75 49 27 108
Virginia 38% 73% 0.86 -49.3% -65 133 230 386 783 493 170 62 67
New Jersey 41% 70% 0.88 -45.9% -122 265 348 282 201 184 194 162 143
Massachusetts 41% 81% 0.91 -43.7% -137 313 356 239 226 207 176 172 176
Texas 33% 69% 0.76 -34.5% -68 196 425 201 316 251 192 158 129
Utah 34% 76% 0.85 -32.3% -33 101 172 111 137 67 67 73 68
New York 38% 66% 0.8 -21.7% -55 255 361 239 209 177 168 94 200
Florida 34% 75% 0.76 -21.0% -34 160 300 257 224 177 141 91 126
California 38% 77% 0.81 -19.9% -44 222 505 314 384 241 286 131 178
North Carolina 36% 71% 0.81 -17.3% -24 141 317 200 160 129 86 67 117
Georgia 30% 68% 0.7 25.4% 38 151 435 346 263 231 160 141 189
Kentucky 39% 72% 0.87 64.1% 114 179 352 184 228 209 209 236 293
Hawaii 39% 62% 0.77 166.7% 18 11 284 18 29 22 22 11 29
Priority order3makes a difference in how fast death rates go down.4 Below are some sample states who look like they have have reduced their death rates the best. Looked asof 2/2/2021 and there were three states, ND, VT and NE noted below. Then reviewed on 3/2 and added two more states, OH and AR:

Ohio (death rate down 97.4% as of 3/2)

    Priority order is sliced by age over 65, versus all 65 yr olds and many younger workers all competing for limited vaccine at once as many states are doing. OH limited competition from frontline workers and held off teachers, for those 75+.
    OH website Phase 1B:
  • Jan. 19, 2021 – Ohioans 80 years of age and older.
  • Jan. 25, 2021 – Ohioans 75 years of age and older. And those with a developmental or intellectual disability...
  • Feb. 1, 2021 – Ohioans 70 years of age and older; employees of K-12 schools that wish to remain or return to in-person or hybrid models.
  • Feb. 8, 2021 – Ohioans 65 years of age and older.
  • Feb. 15, 2021 – Ohioans born with or who have early childhood conditions...

Arkansas (death rate down 89.8% as of 3/2)

    Prioity order:
  • "On Jan. 18, the state will move from Phase 1A into Phase 1B. Phase 1B is tiered and includes Arkansans 70 and older, teachers and education staff, food and agricultural workers, police, firefighters, and correctional staff as well as manufacturing workers, grocery store workers, public transit workers, U.S. Postal workers, and essential government workers. Initial prioritization will be given to those who are 70 and older, teachers, and educational staff." KATV news 1/16/21
  • The key to this significant reduction versus other states might be that 70 years olds and older are given priority with limited competition from younger workers.
  • Arkansas stayed with over 70 as priority and kept the group of younger workers competing with them for vaccine low initially. Looks like they got great results. As of 2/23 they opened eligibility to all 65+.
  • As of 3/2 the acceleration of spread looks to be going up in AR so maybe the mutations are flaring up in the state. Will be interesting to see in 2 weeks time whether the rise in cases and adding the whole 65+ group will negatively affect death rates going down. I am hoping that perhaps they vaccinated enough seniors already to mute the rise in deaths from a rise in cases. See model and discussion on how a chosen priority for vaccination will affect overall death toll.

North Dakota (death rate down by 81.6% as of 2/2)

    ND gov site: Phase 1B (in order of priority):
  1. Persons age 75 and older
  2. Persons age 65 – 74 with two or more high-risk medical conditions
  3. Staff and persons living in other congregate settings (i.e., corrections, group homes, treatment centers, homeless shelters, etc.)
  4. Persons age 65 and older with one or more high-risk medical conditions
  5. Persons age 65 and older with or without high-risk medical conditions
  6. Persons with two or more high-risk medical conditions regardless of age
  7. Child care workers
  8. Workers employed by preschools or Kindergarten through 12th grade:
    Teachers, nutritional services, aides, bus drivers, principals, administrative staff, custodians, etc.

Vermont (death rate down 72.2% by 2/2 - has gotten worse though, 61.1% asof 3/2)

    VT has gotten worse. Some thoughts maybe on why...
  • Sometime after Jan 25th, VT added all first responders to be eligible and opened up to all 65+ instead of going by age. The state moved from 2nd best reduction in death rates down to only mid-2nd quartile.
  • Vermont started out doing well but has since fallen off. Hard to say conclusively, since the death numbers are so small it could be glitch, however, just to contrast to AR and Ohio above, VT changed priority to include all 65+ and added all first responders. This added many more younger workers competing with seniors than was happening at first, when they were having excellent death rate reduction. In contrast and coincident with the priority change in VT, Arkansas stayed the course with the age priority and continued to get better when VT got worse.
  • All else being equal death rate should lower and stay low, however, the reason I think this is not good assumption is I was seeing the new strains being more contagious and more deadly to seniors than younger people than the original strain. So as that strain makes it way into an area, death rates will tend to go up, and more so even for seniors. That is all the more reason to vaccine seniors early to preempt this. I think there was a chance that VT might have stayed low(er) if their priority order of using age was followed as initially done and planned.

    • Previous vaccination order (shown below) was modified after Jan 25. Not sure if this is why their death rate is no longer going down, but vaccinating younger people before older does not reduce death rates as fast.

      see VT gov site for current priority
      The following was copied from the site on Jan 25th and shows priority order for the 2/2 death rate reduction number above:
    1. PEOPLE 75 YEARS AND OLDER. People 75 and older need to live, work or access primary care in Vermont to be eligible for the vaccine.
    2. HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL AND RESIDENTS OF LONG-TERM CARE FACILITIES. NOTE: While health care personnel are eligible and many were vaccinated in December and January, vaccine supply fluctuates. At this time health care personnel may have to wait for the next opportunity when there is more vaccine available. Check with your local hospital for updates on vaccine for health care personnel.
    3. Next: Vermont is using age groupings to determine who can receive the vaccine next based on our primary goal with vaccination efforts – to save lives. After people 75 and older, the next age grouping will be 70 years and older, then 65 and older, as vaccine supply allows. These phases will overlap.
    4. After the age groups, the vaccine will be available to people in Vermont who have certain high-risk health conditions.

Nebraska (death rate down 70.2% as of 2/2 - worse at only58.3% as of 3/2)

NE gov site (PDF):
Priority: 65 and older was first. Then:
Tier I (first responders, utilities...) and start 18-64 higher high-risk conditions
Tier II (funeral homes, grocery...) continue higher risk conditions
Tier II (transportation, usps, transit workers) continue high risk conditions

Plan now the implementation of the plan did not prioritize seniors before starting younger workers. The plan now shows 1b starting Feb 1st with the whole 65+ group, then and many workers starting 2 weeks after that. There was no age slicing as in OH and AR within the 65+ group. Started off well but, again seems to me to be another expample where the state did not continue using age as priority and too much compeition for the seniors, and conincidently death rates went back up.



A good site for further information on the vaccine rollout is the New York TImes Vaccine Rollout page. This has map of states distribution a map summarizing state's priority and age they are at in vaccinating seniors. There is a table showing priority for vaccination after 1a. That table also has link to each state's covid page.

What may be interesting to keep an eye on and correlate/note, is whether seniors are being delayed or even withheld, from getting the vaccine by having to compete with younger people, who have minimal risk of death or even severe illness... thus, prolonging high death tolls. Irony about this... footnote 5

This link will take you to the New York Times site. You will be exiting this dashboard.
NY Times Vaccine Rollout Page

Footnotes:
  1. There is glimmer of good news! So far there are a few states, three to be exact, who have in fact lowered their death rates by over 70% by week 5. They also are ones that seem to have focused their plan on vaccinating seniors first, versus using the de facto CDC-ACIP plan. In the top 2 states they are focused on 75+ first, then 65+. Separating these helps as well.

    Do not think that connection is solely coinicidence or happenstance. There are strong mathematical and logical foundations that support the theory and the idea of focusing vaccinations by age and those results are not out line with what would be expected given the priority order they are pursuing. It is releavent to note, that 85%, of the deaths are seniors and they make up only 15% of the population.

    The consequences and outcomes, i.e. risks of getting the virus are not nearly the same for everyone. Not sure why or how we ended up with a plan that is more (or as equally) focused on stopping amorphous spread versus primarily on saving lives of those in the groups in the most immiment harms' way... Not sure this plea will change minds or help - decisions and positions may be entrenched -- but imagine if all states would have taken notice and made decisions based on death rates versus the spread. States: it is not too late to reconsider and make some minor adjustment to order based on the data. ↩

  2. Full weeks, ending on Tuesdays. Distribution is being done by week M-Sun. The % administered is cumulative asof the Sunday prior to the last week shown and will be updated on Wednesdays when a new week is calculated and added to the table. ↩

  3. Priority order is crucial to saving lives and lowering death toll. See About>Topics. Click on button link to a writeup with some estimates and models using various vaccination orders ↩

  4. High death tolls are overwhelmingly driven by the death rate of our seniors. Age seems to even dwarf the high health risk conditions in determining the death rates. Those over 75+ have, by far, the highest rate per their population. Next is 65+ etc. Again, 85% of all deaths are those over 65, while they comprise only 15% of the population. It would be much faster and more direct to vaccinate this group rather than all workers or age groups or even those with high risk conditions trying to lower spread as mechanism to lower death rates. Those in high risk conditions is 1/3 of the country and I htink workers are like over 1/2. Note as well, the additional risk for health condition is only an adder on top of age risk, with the age risk deltas being much greater in absolute terms. Having looked at the stats in detail, North Dakota order above seems pretty sound. One alteration to consider, in the interest of getting chilren back in school, might be to alleviate some anxiety and risk for the older teachers and give them the same priority as the 16-64 high risk group. I would suggest population 50-55+ teachers in same group as 65+ and before younger high risk so to not have the older at risk teachers wait a long time - that 16-64 high risk group is large. ↩

  5. Irony about prioritizing younger people rather than focusing on getting the death rates down in the high rate groups, namely seniors (period), is that the excess death rates in younger groups are mostly from other reasons. See "Detailed age table and excess death %s" in Graphs>Death Rates by Age, while their risk of severe illness or death from covid is minimal. Under 45 the death rate (risk) is less than half the general rate of deaths from a random accident, and under 24 it is less than a tenth of random accident. Sure, we should be careful, but we do not stop our normal lives in fear of accident, do we?
    I think the reason younger people really needed to not get this virus was to not pass it along to others who are at high risk of illness and death if they get it. If that "pass-along" risk were eliminated it may not be so critical that younger people be under lock down and mask manadates and maybe they could choose to actually live their lives -- ?? Just a thought... We will never be without risk. Yes there is minimal statistical risk, but on other hand we are seeing probable and actual harm in the school shut downs and people being prevented from working.
    I postulate that the high "other" excess death phenomena in younger groups, is a side-effect of the lockdowns and consequences of less access to routine health-care. The lockdowns were put in place to lower the death tolls and lower strain on health system capcacity. Preventive and routine doctor visits were riskier so they were curtailed, and to avoid contact, doctor visits are more and more being done virtually, which is less effective.
    So, the real irony in protecting a few younger workers over seniors, is that that prolongs lockdowns etc for the vast majority of working people and is prolonging the younger peoples' higher death rates from things other than covid!
    And let's not forget to mention: the longer the death tolls and hospitalizations remain high, the more prolonged the lockdowns, thus destroying our core social fabric AND everyone's, including the country's, economic footing. ↩

Informed layman's viewpoint. See "About>About" for descriptions and information. Estimates and data smoothing are used to present coherent numbers from period to period. Informational only. Should not be relied upon as your sole source for decision making.