Since COVID-19 vaccines became available to Coloradans, uptake has not been uniform, with some areas of the state now with almost no unvaccinated residents, but more than half still unvaccinated in others.
State health department vaccination data and county-by-county election outcome data show a strong correlation, suggesting that politics remains intertwined in Coloradans’ decisions about the vaccines.
Almost 30% of all residents of counties that gave former President Donald Trump the most votes in 2020 are unvaccinated, where as about 15% of the population is unvaccinated in counties that favored then-candidate Joe Biden.
Recent COVID-19 cases and deaths reflect the disparities in vaccination rates. Vaccines became widely available in Colorado in April. Since May, pro-Trump counties have had 40% more new cases per capita than pro-Biden counties, and twice as many COVID-19 deaths per capita.Â
Four out of every five COVID-19 deaths since May have been in unvaccinated persons. Being unvaccinated, age-adjusted state health department data show, leaves people 10 times as likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people. Â
The trend, though it has become more clear with time, emerged in the state’s vaccination data soon after vaccines became widely available. By late April, areas of the state with more than 75% support for Biden had vaccinated twice as many people per capita than areas of the state that voted more than 75% for Trump.
The same pattern has shown up across the country. A recent NPR investigation looking at COVID-19 death rates across the nation showed “counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump have had nearly three times the COVID mortality rates of those that voted for Joe Biden.”
