Question: I think I read that Montgomery County, Maryland has really high vaccination rates– like >90% among folks ages 12+.  Is that correct?  Which counties in the country have the highest vaccination rates?

Answer: According to CDC’s county-level tracker, MoCo has fully vaccinated 90% of its residents ages 12+ and 96% of its residents ages 65+.  Of all Maryland’s counties, MoCo has the highest proportion of residents ages 12+ fully vaccinated (range: 90% in MoCo to 49% in Garrett).  What you read is correct!  When it comes to other countries with high vaccination rates, it’s important to keep in mind that CDC began tracking county-level trends in vaccination uptake in late March 2021; the data are not available for every county, and quality/timeliness of the data varies by location. For example, CDC’s data show that Santa Cruz county, Arizona has fully vaccinated 100% of its residents (highest in the country). While the county has indeed experienced very high vaccination uptake, 100% coverage is unlikely, as the local paper, Nogales International, described in reporting from earlier this summer.  Here, it’s the linkage of vaccinations provided with residence data that’s likely off– Santa Cruz provided many doses to workers who live outside the county and these doses may have been counted as doses to residents.  If there are other states/counties you’re interested in, you can get a snapshot from the NY Times COVID Tracker or you can ask me to pull charts using CDC’s data.cdc.gov dataset, COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States,County.  

Figure 1. Percent of residents ages 12+ fully vaccinated, Maryland Counties (visualized using data.cdc.gov)