GREAT PROGRESS BUT TROUBLING DISPARITIES IN VACCINATION RATES BETWEEN "NORTH" AND "SOUTH" GREENBURGH. [REVISED TO MAY 2, 2021 VACCINATION UPDATE AND HARTSDALE NUMBERS]
The latest Westchester County vaccination data shows progress, but gaps persist between "North Greenburgh" (White Plains zips, Tarrytown, Valhalla zip, Elmsford) and "South Greenburgh" (Hartsdale, Ardsley, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, Scarsdale zip (Edgemont). As before, this zip data includes a lot of people who live outside Greenburgh in zip codes that cross town lines (10603 & 10607 in WP, 10595 (Valhalla/New Castle), 10591 (Sleepy Hollow), and especially 10583 (Scarsdale village)). The bolded columns (2 Shots & JJ) are fully vaccinated residents, both (i) total and (ii) 18 years old & over. Again, I added the % of residents who the census identifies as "white" to examine whether concerns that persons of color are receiving shots disproportionately less than whites has validity locally.
The variations are troubling to say the least. How do we explain the North/South gap? One disturbing data point is that the five zip codes with the lowest % of fully vaccinated residents are the five zip codes lowest in white resident % - although it should be noted that the correlation between race and vaccination rates isn't precise (e.g., Valhalla).
Another troubling data column is the % of 1st shot only recipients. These numbers are very low and suggest that some zip codes (e.g., Elmsford, Valhalla, WP) will struggle to reach 60% fully vaxed anytime soon for their 18yo+ population .
LOTS OF CREDIT TO WESTCHESTER COUNTY (Town of Greenburgh? Eh, not so much)
To give some context, lets look at some comparative rates,
Impressively, 43% fully vaccinated would place Westchester County and Greenburgh just behind Maine and in a tie with Connecticut among US states. However, 53% of residents with at least one shot, would rank Greenburgh 9th among US states. HOWEVER, as we can see above, Greenburgh is almost exactly in line with Westchester County for vaccination rates. While our municipal efforts toward getting residents vaccinated have gained national attention, the results do not show any improvement on the County's numbers. Perhaps the credit for Greenburgh's high rates of vaccinations (compared nationally and statewide) really belongs to George Latimer and Westchester County? [NOTE: my zip code based Greenburgh data includes neighboring areas that share zip codes - both low vaccination rate areas like Sleepy Hollow and New Castle and high rate areas like Scarsdale. Nevertheless, Elmsford 10523 which is entirely within Greenburgh trails all 10 Greenburgh zip codes].
While Greenburgh (and Westchester) rank very well compared to other states, Elmsford's vaccination rates tie (with Kansas, Florida and Alaska) for 26th among states for at least one shot, and 34th among states for full vaccinations.
Data: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html; covid-data-tracker ; https://covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/covid-19-vaccine-tracker
The data are probably just showing us that less educated areas have higher prevalence vaccine hesitancy.
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