Red states lagging behind on Covid vaccination rate – with lockdown-lifted Texas one of the worst

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Nine Republican-led states have the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the United States, with Texas, which recently announced it would be lifting mask mandates, recording one of the worst numbers.

Data obtained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows the nine states doing the worst at vaccinating by percentage of residents are all controlled by Republican governors.

Georgia is bottom, with just 13.3 per cent of its residents receiving at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The other eight states also trailing behind are Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and Utah. The only Democratic-led locality vaccinating at the same or lower rates compared to the above states was Washington DC, which has only vaccinated 14.3 per cent of its population.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, surprised the country when he announced that his state would be ending its statewide mask mandate and opening all businesses. This decision will go into effect on 10 March.

Mr Abbott credited his state's vaccination rates as one reason why Covid-19 measures could be rolled back. But Texas ranked 47th out of the 50 states for vaccinating only 15.2 per cent of its population to date.

Exact reasons as to why some Republican-led states have lagged in administering vaccines remains unclear.

In states like Texas and Missouri, bad winter weather in February contributed to the cancellation of thousands of vaccine appointments during the course of one week. Some states have also struggled accessing eligible elderly residents that fulfilled CDC vaccine recommendations.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp claimed last week that his state wasn't doing as badly at getting vaccines into the arms of residents as CDC data suggested.

"You don't see on that website where Georgia's at 60 per cent of vaccinating people over 65 years of age, and the national average is 49 per cent," Mr Kemp said. "We have got to target the population that gets hit the hardest."

On the other end of the spectrum, New Mexico, a Democratic-led state, leads the country for vaccinating its residents, with 25.8 per cent of the state's population receiving at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Following closely behind New Mexico in vaccinations are states including Alaska, Connecticut, South Dakota, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine.

One issue state and health officials across the country face is addressing vaccine hesitancy among communities.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 28 per cent of Republicans said they would “definitely not” receive a Covid-19 vaccine. An additional 18 per cent said they would "wait and see" about receiving the vaccine when their turn comes.

Democrats, in comparison, were less likely to show the same vaccine hesitancy, with only 2 per cent saying they would "definitely not" receive the vaccine and 19 per cent saying they would "wait and see".

Despite some continued hesitancy and rollout problems across the country, vaccine distribution has largely increased in recent months since President Joe Biden took office. The country was averaging about 2.2 million vaccine doses administered per day.

In total, more than 93 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered to Americans, and over 9 per cent of the population is now fully vaccinated. This week the United States has more fully vaccinated residents than people who have tested positive for Covid-19, according to CDC data.