Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Revisiting Whether It's Politics or Economics That Impacts a County's Vaccination Percentage?

By Michael Bitzer

Back in the middle of summer, I posted a simple analysis that looked at the 100 North Carolina counties and their full (second shot) vaccination percentages compared to whether a county voted for Trump, or whether other factors might influence the county vaccination percentage.

In that previous analysis, Trump's county vote percentage was statistically significant, meaning we can say with some confidence that it does have an impact and helps explain a county's vaccination percentage. But it appeared to be in conjunction with a county's per capita income, along with a few other 'variables' that ultimately helped to explain 62 percent of a county's full vaccination percentage. 

Recently, the New York Times reported an analysis that showed that in counties that voted overwhelmingly for Trump (70 percent or greater) "the virus has killed about 47 out of every 100,000 people since the end of June," compared to 10 out of 100,000 in those counties that voted the reverse (less than 32 percent for Trump).

I decided to update the data for the number of full vaccinations in each N.C. county, and then created the percentage of those age 15 years and older for a county's full vaccination percentage to replicate the July analysis. 

First, a scatterplot of the county full vaccination percentage against Trump's county vote: