The big thing you should know about economic recovery in the Minneapolis Saint Paul region for the week of February 8th.
This Week’s Big Thing: introducing the newest metric to the Regional Recovery Hub: COVID-19 Vaccinations. We’ve been waiting patiently for vaccination data to become available and finally have a couple weeks of solid data to share out. For this week’s Weekly Take I’ll introduce the new metric and how we’ll be using the data to better understand economic recovery in the MSP region.
If you’ve been following the news at all you know that COVID-19 vaccines have been distributed to all states. Distribution of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines began in the U.S. back in December and the CDC laid out several phases of vaccine distribution, with the very first phase (1a) only being offered to first responders and high-risk health workers. Minnesota remains in phase 1a, though a community vaccination program initially serving adults 65 years of age or older and educators (pre-kindergarten through grade 12), school staff, and childcare workers launched in January.
The COVID-19 Vaccination metric is tracking the share of the population that has received at least a single dose of the vaccine. This is important because of the notable efficacy of the vaccine after the first dose and because the availability of second doses has the potential to be delayed as priority is placed on larger distribution of the first dose. While it is not yet included, we are looking at separately reporting the percent of the population having received both doses within the deeper dive of the Recovery Hub since it is relevant for understanding how available vaccines should be going forward. More to come there!
The data source we are using is the Minnesota Department of Health, so it is important to know that the metric is aggregating vaccination data for the 13 Minnesota counties that are located in the Minneapolis Saint Paul region and excludes the 2 counties that are located in Wisconsin. While data is updated daily by MDH, the Recovery Hub will be reporting out weekly updates, reflecting vaccinations as of the most recent Friday. It’s also important to point out how we are using the color scale to represent vaccination progress in the region. Unlike the other metrics where the color scale is used to represent a state of decline and recovery relative to pre-COVID-19 conditions, the COVID-19 Vaccination metric is using the color scale to represent progress toward full coverage. The dark orange color represents 0 to 25% of the population with at least a single dose, light orange represents 25% to 50%, light blue represents 50% to 75%, and dark blue represents 75% to 100%. We expect that there will be weekly incremental increases in coverage but will look for slowdowns in improvement and will seek to identify any reasons for that slowdown.
As of February 5th, 258,083 people, or 7.4% of the MSP region’s population, have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Over the last two weeks, the share of the region’s population that has received at least one dose has grown by roughly two percentage points each week, from 3.2% in the third week of January, to 5.0% in the final week of January, and then to 7.4% during the most recent week.
As states enter more expansive phases of vaccine distribution, it will be important to address racial equity in vaccine distribution. It is well known that people of color have borne a disproportionate burden of the pandemic’s impacts and a longstanding history of wide-ranging health disparities. A December report from the Kaiser Family Foundation outlines specific barriers to vaccination for people of color as well as recommendations for equitable distribution. Additionally, the CDC is tracking demographic characteristics of people receiving vaccines for states that are reporting it. While the Minnesota Department of Health is tracking age and gender, data is not readily available on the race or ethnicity of recipients of the vaccine. We will continue to seek evidence about the equitable distribution of vaccines as new data becomes available.
We know another important consideration is how fast vaccinations are happening here in MSP and Minnesota relative to other states. Look next week for peer benchmarking data to be added to the COVID-19 Vaccination deep dive page.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically disrupted the economy at all scales, fueling an economic recession in the U.S. It is widely expected that the rollout of vaccine programs that can bring the virus under control will lead to economic recovery. It is not until the number of new COVID-19 cases drop and stabilize, and vaccinations become widespread, that dial-back measures will be able to be rescinded and that we will see dramatic improvements toward economic recovery. Now that we are tracking vaccinations alongside other measures of economic recovery we can begin to interpret and anticipate when and how fast the economy is recovering.
Want to see the latest data and insights on economic recovery in MSP? Check out the MSP Regional Recovery Hub. The Hub is in beta, which means we are actively working to enhance the functionality to make sure it works for you. If you have any questions or feedback on the Recovery Hub, or would like to learn more about getting involved contact Amanda Taylor, Vice President of Research & Intelligence.