SAVANNAH, Georgia (AP) – With coronavirus shots now in the arms of nearly half of American adults, the parts of the U.S. that perform and those that struggle with vaccinations look like the political map of the country: deeply divided between blue state.
Up front is New Hampshire, where 65% of the population 18 years and older received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Following this, New Mexico, Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts are up 55% or more. Everyone has a history of democratic voting and supported President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Meanwhile, there are five states where less than 40% have rolled up their sleeves for a chance. Four of them – Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Tennessee – leaned Republican and voted for Donald Trump last fall. The fifth is Georgia, which has a Republican governor and has supported GOP presidential candidates for nearly three decades before receiving close support from Biden.
The emerging pattern: Americans in blue states who are mightily Democratic seem to be vaccinated at more robust prices, while those in red Republican states seem reluctant.
“We can conclude that red states and voters who voted for Trump are going to get vaccinated harder because we have good polling data to support it,” he said. Howard Forman, a professor of public health and management at Yale School of Medicine.
A poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research end of March found that 36% of Republicans said they were likely or definitely not to be vaccinated, compared to 12% of Democrats. Similarly, a third of rural Americans said they tend not to get shot, while less than a quarter of urban and suburban residents share the reluctance.
Forman warned that the demand for the shot in most U.S. states, which receive vaccines based on the population, still exceeds supply. So it’s hard to know how many people resist until everyone wants to get it. But if states soon start seeing a significant number of unfulfilled appointments with many people who have not yet been vaccinated, he said consequences could be serious.
“We could see significant outbreaks a long time ago,” Forman said. “It will determine whether we will be normal again in some cases.”
Previous AP-NORC polls showed that more Republicans than Democrats said the government was exaggerating the threat of the virus. Republicans are also more opposed to restrictions and wearing masks.
The CDC reports that nearly 121 million American adults – or 47% of the American adult population – received at least one coronavirus shot. California, the country’s largest blue state, is 50% higher than that rate. The largest red state, Texas, is less than 44%.
How quickly states vaccinate does not always match the way they vote.
Deep red South Dakota is among the most successful states, with 54% of the population receiving injections. Among blue states, Nevada is furthest behind the U.S. with less than 44%, followed by Oregon and Michigan with 45% each.
New Hampshire, which leads the country in adult vaccinations, has a Republican governor and a GOP-controlled legislature. However, Democrats own all his seats in Congress and the state has been Democratic in every presidential election since 2008.
West Virginia, where Trump had 66% of the vote last year, became an early success story during the vaccination of the vaccine as the first U.S. state to cover all nursing homes. But while Republican Gov. Jim Justice has remained a cheerleader for vaccination, West Virginia is now a backlog in the U.S. with less than 42% of the population receiving at least one dose.
Among those who say they will not be vaccinated is 58-year-old Martha Brown. Brown sat outside her apartment complex in Charleston, West Virginia, saying she was afraid of reacting badly after a flu shot last year had cold symptoms.
“I’m fine,” Brown said. “I wear my mask all the time.”
Experts say it is too soon to determine whether shots of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine will be interrupted will increase the unwillingness to be vaccinated. Government scientists are investigating reports of unusual blood clots in six women who received the vaccine.
If the issue is resolved quickly and it is deemed safe to resume the Johnson & Johnson surveys, there will be little impact on public confidence, said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. She hopes the response itself will assure people that the system works.
“It’s really important to understand that we are monitoring so closely that everyone is getting the vaccine” for possible problems, “Hannan said. “We have systems to connect the dots.”
In a suburb outside Chicago, Jennifer Rockwood was shooting her Johnson & Johnson Tuesday morning when she heard about the recommended break. She cancels her appointment after waiting months to get the vaccine.
“Did it hesitate me? “Yes, it happened,” Rockwood, 49, said. But I was immediately back at my kitchen counter and turned the laptop on again and saw what I could do to plan another one. ‘
She booked an appointment to get the Pfizer vaccine on Wednesday.
Trump has publicly urged Americans to be vaccinated, but has also secretly received his own injections and only made them known after he left office. As president, he spent much of the pandemic limiting the dangers of the virus, even after being hospitalized with COVID-19.
Some Republican governors likewise kept their own vaccinations quiet.
In Florida, where about 44% of the population received at least one shot, it has not been announced that GOP Governor Ron DeSantis received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine until a reporter asked the governor’s spokesman days later. Many other U.S. governors got their shots on camera or held news conferences around them to assure people that the vaccines were safe.
The Democratic governor of Kentucky, a Trump-voting state, is trying to persuade more people to get caught by promising to lift pandemic restrictions when vaccination rates improve. About 1.6 million people in Kentucky received at least one dose, a rate equal to the US.
Government Andy Beshear said Monday it will lift capacity constraints on restaurants, shops, concert halls and other businesses as soon as Kentucky reaches 2.5 million people. who had shots.
“The choices of each individual can bring us closer to the normality we sought,” Beshear said.
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AP writers Cunaut Dil in Charleston, West Virginia, and Sophia Eppolito in Salt Lake City contributed.