San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Wide disparity in vaccination rates
After a rocky start, California has now vaccinated slightly more of its population than the U.S. has overall. But vaccination rates vary widely by region, county and city.
The Chronicle compiled data from four Bay Area counties that release information on the percentage of residents 16 and over vaccinated by city: Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco. According to our analysis of cities with 5,000 residents or more, Atherton has the highest vaccination rate, with 3 in 4 of its residents having received at least one dose of vaccine. Walnut Creek is second with 66% of its residents vaccinated.
East Palo Alto and Bay Point had the lowest rates of vaccinated residents, at 24% and 25% respectively.
In doing this analysis, we were also interested in determining how a city’s overall vaccination rate compared to its population makeup — that is, whether the top cities had greater vaccination rates because more of their residents had been eligible for longer.
The Chronicle used U.S. census data to estimate the number of each city’s residents deemed highpriority for a COVID vaccine. We included people 65 and older as well as education and health care workers, but not food and agriculture workers or people made eligible by specific health conditions due to the lack of data for these groups.
We then compared each city’s percentage of highpriority residents to its overall vaccination rate. The line between the red dot (priority percentage) and blue dot (vaccination rate) represents the differences between each city’s rates. A larger gap between the red and blue points, which reflect the overall rate of adults with at least one vaccine dose, indicates that a city is farther ahead on vaccinating its nonpriority population.
Looking at this difference, Atherton once again is in the lead. The city’s population is about 33% priority eligible, but 75% of residents are vaccinated.
The state has struggled to vaccinate its residents in an equitable way. Last week, a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that California ranked among the five worst states in getting its poorest and most vulnerable residents vaccinated. The state has fallen behind on vaccinating its Black and Hispanic residents in particular.
Atherton’s high vaccination rate appears to fit the trend. The small town is almost 70% white and less than 6% Black and Hispanic combined. Its median home price of $6.35 million is one of the highest in the nation.
Walnut Creek, though less wealthy than Atherton, is also nearly 70% white with a median household income of about $106,000, above California’s overall median income of $80,440.
And whether considering overall vaccination rates or the gap between vaccination rate and priority population, the Bay Area cities that are lagging reflect California’s struggle to get its more vulnerable residents vaccinated. In Fairview, only 37% of adult residents are vaccinated despite 39% of them being priority eligible. The censusdesignated place in Alameda County is also only about 35% white, and nearly 20% Black and 23.6% Hispanic.
The city with the lowest vaccination rate overall, East Palo Alto, has a median household income of just $67,000 and is 66% Hispanic and just 10% white, according to the latest census estimates. The city has vaccinated just 24% of its population.