Fresno, Valley lag behind California’s COVID vaccine rate. Who’s not getting the shots?
Across California, more than half of all residents have been fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus – a remarkable accomplishment for products that have only been available under emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for less than nine months.
Statewide, six out of every 10 Californians have gotten at least one dose of vaccine.
Almost 15.6 million – or just under 39% of the population – have not received even one shot. That includes almost 6.2 million children under the age of 12 who are not yet eligible to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
In some parts of the state, including Fresno County and the surrounding counties of the central San Joaquin Valley, the proportion of unvaccinated residents uniformly exceeds the statewide rate – sometimes by a considerable margin.
In Fresno County, where county health officials once had hoped to get shots into the arms of 65% to 75% of residents by the end of August, fully half of the county’s 1-million-plus population remains unvaccinated. That’s tied for the 22nd-highest unvaccinated rate among California’s 58 counties.
In neighboring Kings County, almost two-thirds of the county’s 156,444 residents have not yet gotten a coronavirus shot. Kings County’s unvaccinated rate of 65.1% is the fourth highest in the state behind less populated mountain counties Lassen, Tehama and Modoc counties.
In between are the remaining Valley counties:
- Tulare County – total population 484,423, unvaccinated 281,955 or 58.2%.
- Merced County – total population 287,420, unvaccinated 165,010 or 57.4%
- Madera County – total population 160,089, unvaccinated 88,818 or 55.5%.
- Mariposa County – total population 17,795, unvaccinated 9,610, or 54%.
Who’s skipping the shots?
Uniformly across the region, children ages 12 to 17 have the lowest uptake of vaccines among the eligible population. That age group, however, was the last population segment for which the vaccines were authorized in May, months after almost everyone else.
Since mid-May, 28% of 12- to 17-year-olds in Fresno County have been “fully vaccinated,” meaning they’ve received either both doses of the two-shot products by Moderna or Pfizer or one shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine; another 10.4% are partially vaccinated and awaiting their second shot.
That leaves more than 61% of pre-teens and teens wholly unvaccinated as schools across the Valley prepare to reopen the 2021-22 school year with in-person instruction in classrooms. It’s also a segment of the population that is seeing a significant increase in new coronavirus infections believed to be largely fueled by the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.
Senior citizens in Fresno County, among the first groups after medical professionals to be emphasized by health leaders to get their shots earlier this year, are the most-vaccinated age segment. More than two-thirds of adults age 65 and older are fully vaccinated, while only about 21% have not gotten jabbed.
The 18-to-49 age group remains a concern for county health leaders because that segment has the highest rate of unvaccinated residents despite being vaccine eligible for months. More than 45% of those working-age adults remain unvaccinated with even one shot as a growing number of businesses, restaurants and other economic sectors and social activities fully reopen from measures intended to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
With growing concern over the fast-spreading delta variant of coronavirus among both children and adults, an increasing number of employers are adopting mandates requiring their workers to get vaccinated, or, alternatively for some, submit to frequent COVID-19 testing. They include local hospitals like Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County and Saint Agnes Medical Center and Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fresno; and the city of Fresno.
Uneven distribution of shots
Age groups aren’t the only area of discrepancy for vaccine uptake. Vaccination rates in Fresno County vary widely based on race or ethnicity, including majorities of eligible Latino, Black and Native American residents who are unvaccinated.
About 41,000 African Americans in Fresno County are vaccine eligible; of that number, almost 24,000 – more than 62% – are unvaccinated. That’s the largest percentage of any ethnic or racial segment without shots in the county.
Fresno County’s sizable Latino/Hispanic population numbers more than 540,000 residents who are eligible for vaccines, but more than half, almost 53%, have yet to receive a vaccine. More than 53% of the county’s Native American population is also unvaccinated.
By contrast, unvaccinated rates among other demographic segments are significantly lower:
- Multi-racial: 44.7% unvaccinated.
- White: 37.3% unvaccinated.
- Asian: 29.5% unvaccinated.
Economic disparities also show up in Fresno County’s vaccination rates. Almost 80% of the county’s residents reside in economically and socially disadvantaged neighborhoods that fall into the bottom half of the state’s Healthy Places Index.
The average percentage of unvaccinated residents in those areas is more than 39% – compared to an unvaccinated rate of only 17% across in the county’s most affluent neighborhoods.
This story was originally published August 11, 2021 at 3:17 PM.
