Rural vaccination rates lag in Ky. and rest of U.S., but difference in rural and urban rates in Ky. isn’t as big as national gap

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

Getting vaccinated for Covid-19 is less popular in Kentucky, and in rural America, than in the rest of the country. But rural Kentuckians do a better job of keeping up with their counterparts in other states than urban Kentuckians do.

That’s one way to look at a study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of first-dose coronavirus vaccinations through Jan. 31.

It found that 73.1 percent of Americans had received one of the vaccines, but only 58.5% of rural Americans had. The rate among urban Americans was 75.4%.

In Kentucky, 63.7 percent of residents were vaccinated, but the difference in urban and rural counties was less than in the rest of the nation. The urban rate was 68.7% and the rural rate was 56.5.%

Kentucky’s rural rate was much closer to its national counterpart, just 2 percentage points less, than the urban rates: 68.7% of urban Kentuckians were vaccinated, while 75.4% of all urban Americans were.

So, while rural residents have been blamed for low vaccination rates, urban Kentuckians play an important role in that, too. Here’s a breakdown of the national and state figures by type of area (click on a table to enlarge it):