Data shows it's NOT just Republicans refusing the COVID vaccine

As cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant surge across the United States, some liberal commentators are blaming ‘selfish’ Republicans for fueling the spread by refusing to get vaccinated. 

But data from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) show millions of blacks, Hispanics and people of all races under the age of 40 are also refusing to have the shot. 

Those demographics are far more likely to be vote Democrat, prompting some critics to accuse liberal pundits of manipulating data to push their anti-Republican agenda. 

‘There are millions and millions of people who don’t want the vaccine who don’t fit into the reductive and simplistic partisan narrative that vaccine hesitancy is about conservatism and Fox,’ Glenn Greenwald wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. 

‘It takes some kind of sociopathy to pretend they don’t exist. 

Data from both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) show millions of blacks, Hispanics and people of all races under the age of 40 are also refusing to have the shot

A KFF survey found young people, rural residents and black adults are among the groups most likely to refuse a vaccine, along with registered Republicans 

Glenn Greenwald has accuses liberal pundits of manipulating data to push their anti-Republican agenda

The CDC reports that young Americans between 18-24 are among the most hesitant groups. They account for 9.2 percent of the U.S. population, but only 8 percent of the vaccinated population.  

A separate survey found that 25 percent of unvaccinated people in that age group  have no intention of ever receiving the shots. 

According to the KFF, ‘less than half of black and Hispanic people have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose in nearly all states reporting data, including a number of states where less than a third have received a vaccine.’ 

A separate KFF poll found that one in three black Americans and one in four Hispanic Americans would still refuse the COVID-19 vaccine even if all scientists determined it to be safe.   

Meanwhile, CDC data shows that senior citizens – who are more likely to be Republican than Democrat – are the group with the highest vaccination rate. 

92 percent of Americans  aged 65 to 74 and 87 percent of Americans 75 and older are at least partially vaccinated. 

Greenwald wrote on Twitter: ‘The primary use of COVID discourse for liberal pundits is to be able to scream more loudly than usual their primary view — Republicans are primitive, stupid troglodytes — all while ignoring the actual demographics of who is vaccine hesitant, because those facts ruin their fun’.  

Younger people are less likely to have received the vaccine than older Americans. Many young people either do not fear the virus or do fear the vaccine

Meanwhile, CDC data has found white Americans are more likely to have had a COVID vaccine than their black or Hispanic counterparts.  

White Americans account for 59 percent of the vaccinated despite making up 61 percent of the population.  

However, liberal pundits are correct when they state that rural voters and Republicans – many of whom are white – are among the most vaccine-resistant groups.  

Many rural areas also have lower vaccination rates than their urban peers, though the reason may not only be based in vaccine hesitancy.

Official data shows that 45 percent of people in urban areas have received at least one shot of a vaccine, compared to only 39 percent of people who live in rural areas, according to CDC data.

Rural Americans often have to travel further than their urban counterparts to receive the vaccine, and access to vaccine information is harder in areas that may not have full internet access. 

Door-to-door efforts have already kicked off in some parts of the country, including in rural Georgia. 

In total, nearly 350 million COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered in the United States. 

Almost half of the American population is fully vaccinated, and 57 percent are at least partially vaccinated.

Experts project that it may require the nation reaching 80 percent of the population getting fully vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

 

Urban areas have relatively high vaccination rates across the country (shaded above) while rural areas  (shaded below) are falling behind their urban peers with barriers like a lack of access to information and a lack of transportation playing a role