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US Drops Far Back Among World’s Most Vaccinated Nations

September 28, 2021

Remember last winter when the United States, with Israel and the United Kingdom, were world leaders in COVID-19 vaccination rate? No more. Vaccine hesitancy has dropped the United States off the Top 10 chart to 42nd worldwide in percentage of population fully vaccinated, according to recent numbers from Our World in Data.

The graphic below — hover your cursor, or finger, over it to see the numbers by date — shows the most vaccinated countries, with the U.S., Israel and United Kingdom added for comparisons purposes. In the U.S., 55 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and 64 percent at least partly vaccinated. In Portugal, the most vaccinated country, 84 percent of the population is fully vaccinated and 87 percent at least partly vaccinated.

The United Kingdom now ranks 19th (67 percent), Israel 30th (62 percent), in percentage of population fully vaccinated. The graphic below shows a country’s percentages in fully vaccinated and partly vaccinated. Again, use your cursor, or finger, to hover over a country for a breakdown.

Connecticut, meanwhile, is now the second-most vaccinated state nation, with 68.46 percent of the population fully vaccinated. The booster program now underway for recipients of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination should offer additional protection against a COVID surge this winter.

“We’ve seen some positive signs,” says Dr. Ajay Kumar, Hartford HealthCare’s Chief Clinical Officer. “We’ve seen a decrease in the positivity rate. We’ve seen a decline in hospitalizations as well. I’m optimistic that this is going to improve over time. But I do want to mention that we still are seeing patients who are unvaccinated coming to the hospital. These individuals are getting significantly sick, with a high mortality. It’s still a reminder for those unvaccinated to seek a vaccination.”