Fresno, Valley lag state and national COVID vaccination rates. Who’s skipping shots?
About four people out of every 10 in Fresno County’s total population have received at least one dose of vaccine against COVID-19, and almost one-third of the county’s 1 million-plus residents are now considered “fully vaccinated.”
Those rates, however, lag well behind statewide and national vaccination percentages reported by the California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They indicate that even though new coronavirus cases are fewer and farther between than just a few months ago, Fresno County remains well below the threshold of getting vaccines to 65% to 75% of the population. That’s what health leaders say is needed to provide a level of “herd immunity” in which there are too few people for the virus to effectively spread from person to person and reproduce.
Since the first vaccines to receive emergency-use authorization from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration became available in mid-December, almost 735,000 shots have been given to Fresno residents. As of Tuesday, the state Department of Public Health reported that more than 336,000 Fresno County residents are fully vaccinated. That means they’ve received both shots of the two-dose vaccines produced by Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna, or one dose of the single-shot Janssen/Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Together with another 90,498 people who are “partially vaccinated” with one Pfizer or Moderna vaccine dose, just over 41% of the county’s residents have gotten at least one vaccine shot over the past five months.
What those figures mean, though, is that almost 60% of Fresno County residents are not vaccinated at all against COVID-19.
Vaccination rates are even lower in neighboring counties in the central San Joaquin Valley, ranging from 30.4% of residents fully vaccinated in Madera County to just under 21% in Kings County.
Statewide, more than 41% of California residents are fully vaccinated. The nationwide rate for the United States is 39.7%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Fresno County demographic vaccination rates
So far, only people ages 12 and older are eligible to receive a coronavirus shot. That requirement means that as schools in the county and across the state reopen, in Fresno County there are more than 190,000 children who can’t be vaccinated yet.
Of Fresno County residents who can get a COVID-19 vaccine, however, almost half haven’t gotten one.
Vaccination rates to date are considerably lower among Latino and Black residents than other demographic groups in the county.
By number, the largest single block of unvaccinated residents is among Hispanic or Latino residents. State data shows that of about 445,000 Latinos ages 12 and older in Fresno County, almost 275,000 have not gotten even one dose of vaccine. That amounts to almost 62% who are have not yet received even one shot.
Fewer than one-quarter of eligible Latino residents are fully vaccinated.
While the number of Black residents in Fresno County is considerably smaller, the vaccination rate is even lower. Almost 71% of Fresno County’s Blacks have yet to get a coronavirus shot, and less than 19% are fully vaccinated.
By contrast, about 37% of both the eligible white and Asian populations are fully vaccinated in Fresno County, and fewer than 45% in each of those demographics are unvaccinated.
Fresno County vaccinations in age groups
The most successful aspect of Fresno County’s vaccination effort was a focus on senior citizens ages 65 and older, who are generally considered to be at much higher risk for complications from COVID-19 than younger residents. After the earliest batches of vaccine doses were earmarked for hospital workers including doctors, nurses and others dealing with coronavirus patients, eligibility was expanded to seniors in January.
Since that time, almost 62% of seniors in Fresno County have been fully vaccinated, and more than three-quarters have gotten at least one dose. Fewer than 25% of those residents 65 and older remain unvaccinated.
Not surprisingly, children ages 12 to 17 have the lowest vaccination rate so far in Fresno County. But those are also the ages that became eligible for shots much later than most of the rest of the population – just in the pat few weeks for 12- to 15-year-olds.
So far, about 16% of adolescents and teens have received at least one shot, and almost 6% are fully vaccinated. As school districts reopen classrooms to end the school year and plan for next fall, however, 84% of 12- to 17-year-olds remain unvaccinated.
In the meantime, the FDA has not yet granted authorization for any of the vaccines to be used for children under the age of 12.
As more segments of the economy reopen from coronavirus-prevention measures, and California prepares to lift many restrictions for people to resume work and social activities, a substantial portion of working-age adults in Fresno County who are eligible for vaccines have not gotten even one shot.
Of more than 607,000 people ages 18 to 64 in the county, almost 303,000 – not quite half – remain unvaccinated.
The largest share of those residents are in the 18-to-49 range, in which fewer than 35% are fully vaccinated and almost 56% are unvaccinated.
That’s a source of concern for Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer.
Vohra said recently that he’s pleased with the rates among seniors. “To me, the risk group has now shifted younger because we’ve been so successful vaccinating our elderly,” he said in a recent discussion with reporters.
“Now,” Vohra added, “I’m worried about the 40-year-old person who may be prediabetic or (have high blood pressure) and just doesn’t understand that they’re at risk — that’s who’s going to go to the hospital with COVID if they don’t get their protection from the vaccine.
“It’s our 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds and 50-year-olds, because they need to get the message that they’re now at more risk than our vaccinated elderly,” he said.
Compared to the 18- to 49-year-olds, the figures are almost reversed among older workers ages 50 to 64. In that age group, almost 55% are fully vaccinated, while just under 34% have not gotten a shot.
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
