Relationship Between COVID-19 Cases and Vaccination Rates in New York State Counties

Abstract

Introduction: Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have been developed with unprecedented speed. The phased introduction of vaccines may be serving to offset the impact of new viral variants and policy relaxation. In order to assess the impact of vaccination, we examined a snapshot of vaccination rates across counties in a single state, at a single time point, comparing them with population-adjusted case counts. Methods: We calculated descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations for vaccination rates and cases across counties in New York State (NYS). We conducted a linear regression using cases/100K population per NYS county, frozen at a single snapshot in time, as the outcome variable, predicted by percentage of each county’s population (completed series/two doses), controlling for county population. Results: Percentages with one dose and with two doses were highly correlated (r=.935, P