Orleans passes vaccine milestone but still lags behind every county in state

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 28 March 2021 at 2:50 pm

Orleans County passes 20% with at least one dose

Photo by Tom Rivers: People stop by a vaccine clinic at GCC in Batavia on March 7 that was intended for residents of Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties, but those three counties only received 25 percent of the doses when the clinic didn’t have residency restrictions. Erie County residents claimed about half of the doses.

Orleans County is increasing the number of people vaccinated against Covid-19, but the county still has the lowest vaccination rate in the state.

Orleans in recent days passed 20 percent of the population with at least one vaccination dose for Covid-19. On Tuesday, the county was at 19.4 percent. A week before that on March 16, Orleans was at 16.6 percent of residents with at least one dose.

The state’s Vaccine Tracker today puts the county at 21.3 percent with at least one dose. That is just behind the Bronx at 21.4 percent and Kings (Brooklyn) at 22.0 percent for the lowest vaccination rates in the state.

New York currently has a state-wide vaccination rate of 29.2 percent, while the average in the nine-county Finger Lakes Region is 31.5 percent.

Orleans expects to quicken the pace in the coming days with extra allocations to be administered at vaccination clinics at GCC in Batavia on Monday, Ridgeway Fire Hall in Medina on Tuesday, and Orleans Community Health – Medina Memorial Hospital on Tuesday and Thursday.

The county currently is well behind nearby counties which have the following vaccination rates: Genesee, 26.7%; Wyoming, 25.4%; Niagara, 27.3%; Erie, 31.1%; Monroe, 32.9%; and Livingston, 27.7%.

Orleans and Wyoming counties both have nearly the same populations at about 40,000. Wyoming is ahead of Orleans with vaccinations, 25.4% percent with at least one dose, compared to 21.3% in Orleans, or about 1,500 more people vaccinated – 10,175 with one dose in Wyoming compared to 8,668 in Orleans.

There are 16 counties in the state with populations less than 50,000. Many are significantly ahead of Orleans in the vaccination rate.

  • Montgomery County, 49,302 population, 30.3% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Tioga County, 48,686 population, 22.5% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Chenango County, 47,909 population, 27.4% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Cortland County, 47,865 population, 29.2% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Greene County, 47,424 population, 28.2% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Allegany County, 46,688 population, 23.6% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Delaware County, 44,995 population, 25.0% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Orleans County, 40,904 population, 21.3% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Wyoming County, 40,305 population, 25.4% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Essex County, 37,459 population, 39.6% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Seneca County, 34,390 population, 27.1% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Schoharie County, 31,222 population, 26.5% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Lewis County, 26,572 population, 26.9% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Yates County, 25,011 population, 31.2% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Schuyler County, 17,920 population, 30.5% vaccinated with at least one dose
  • Hamilton County, 4,515 population, 57.3% vaccinated with at least one dose

(Data from NYS Vaccine Tracker and U.S. Census Bureau 2019 population estimates.)