Inland Empire lags behind Southern California in number of vaccinations

The Inland Empire is lagging behind other areas in Southern California in terms of vaccination rates.  San Bernardino and Riverside Counties have a vaccination rate of below 50%.   This actually reflects very closely to the overall vaccination rate in all of California at around 48%.  It just so happens that the Inland Empire’s neighbors, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego County have higher than average rates.  Orange County has one of the highest single vaccination rate zip codes at 78%.

Not surprisingly the areas with the highest vaccination rates have some similarities.  They tend to be wealthy, white and have an aging population.  “Wealthy neighborhoods tend to have access to much better resources than poor ones”, said Lead Economist and professor of Economics and Finance at The Drucker School, Jay Prag. “You would expect a high-correlation rate between income and vaccinations.”

The inverse sadly is also true.  Looking at vaccination rates by zip-code it is clear that poorer, non-white and younger communities are getting vaccinated at a much lower rate.

Academics, medical professionals and others have blamed a variety of issues, mostly economic and access driven for the disparity but they may not be the only reason.

“Young people feel bulletproof and early in the days of the pandemic a message got sent that they really didn’t have to worry that much about it, so they didn’t,” said Reason Foundation Vice-President Dr. Adrian Moore.  “There also may be cultural issues that are playing -into this, not every culture is equally familiar with or comfortable with government officials telling them to stick a needle in their arm.”

The City of San Bernardino has an average vaccination rate of between 34% and 38 % according to the vaccination map provided by the County of San Bernardino and managed by ESRI.