Parson launches new COVID-19 vaccination reporting dashboard

By Hannah Norton, Missouri News Network
Posted 2/3/21

JEFFERSON CITY — Gov. Mike Parson announced a new COVID-19 vaccination dashboard Thursday evening. The dashboard includes data from health care providers across the state and is expected to be …

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Parson launches new COVID-19 vaccination reporting dashboard

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JEFFERSON CITY — Gov. Mike Parson announced a new COVID-19 vaccination dashboard Thursday evening. The dashboard includes data from health care providers across the state and is expected to be updated daily.

The new dashboard launches two days after the New York Times reported Missouri was ranked last out of all 50 states in vaccine rollout. Including U.S. territories and three small countries in agreements with the U.S. (Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands), Missouri is ranked 57th out of 59 locations.

In a release the evening of Jan. 26, Parson said he spoke with the National Governors Association, White House Officials and other federal partners about the CDC’s vaccination data.

“Missouri is not alone in our frustration on how vaccination data is being reported by the CDC,” Parson said in the release. “I and many other Governors expressed concern that vaccination data from the CDC is being misrepresented and does not fully reflect the situations we are seeing at the state level.”

However, Missouri and CDC data nearly mirror one another.

Missouri’s new dashboard reports that 4.5 percent of Missourians have received one or more doses of the vaccine as of Tuesday evening (Jan. 26). The dashboard was last updated Tuesday and includes data through last Sunday.

CDC data, reported by the New York Times, shows 4.3 percent of the Missouri population has received one or more doses.

Missouri’s dashboard also shows 1.3 percent of Missouri residents have received two doses of the vaccine, while CDC data shows 1.2 percent.

Parson said the CDC’s data are “marginal and are being used to misinform Missourians that the state is falling short in vaccine administration, or worse, that the state itself is stockpiling vaccines.”

He explained that vaccine doses are sent directly to local providers rather than to the state itself.

“Our data shows vaccine distribution and administration rates in Missouri are similar to other states,” Parson said.

Parson encourages Missourians to use the state’s dashboard “as one of the best resources to get the latest vaccine numbers without the political rhetoric others may include in their reporting.”

Alaska and West Virginia, the states ranked first and second in vaccine rollout respectively, both have Republican governors. North Dakota, the fifth-ranked state, also has a Republican governor.

The data, broken down

The new dashboard states 275,079 Missourians have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 81,231 people have received both doses.

It also features a bar graph with doses administered over time. So far, the highest-performing day was Wednesday, Jan. 20, with 24,656 doses given.

Vaccination data is categorized by age group, sex, race and ethnicity. To date, Missourians 85 years and older have received the most doses of the vaccine (11.8 percent), while 15 to 24-year-olds have received the least (2.0 percent).

Twice as many females (6 percent) have been vaccinated as males (2.9 percent).

The dashboard also includes data by county. Boone County has administered the second-most vaccines, with 6.4 percent of residents receiving one dose. Cape Girardeau County has had 9.3 percent of its residents vaccinated for the first time. People who receive the vaccine in Missouri but reside outside of the state do not appear on the dashboard.

The Missouri dashboard does not indicate how many vaccines the state has received, but CDC data reports that Missouri has distributed 665,300 doses.