Thread by @dhmontgomery

For @MPRnews, @gundersondan looks at Mahnomen County, which has vaccinated 85% of residents 65+, & more than 30% of people 16-65, both among the best in MN. It’s due to collaboration by @mnhealth & the White Earth Nation, whose borders encompass Mahnomen: mprnews.org/story/2021/02/…

@MPRnews @gundersondan @mnhealth Mahnomen really stands out when you plot out the data, along with Cook County (the state’s highest vaccination rate) and Olmsted County (where Mayo Clinic-based health workers have unsurprisingly led to a high rate of under-65 vaccination):

@MPRnews @gundersondan @mnhealth The map of the ratio between vaccinated seniors and vaccinated non-seniors in MN counties falls into that subgenre of maps I like to call, “Maps that really just show where the Mayo Clinic is”:

@MPRnews @gundersondan @mnhealth I’m only an amateur modeler, but I did some regression work last night to try to predict senior vaccination rates using a whole host of demographic variables — race, education, home value, health insurance status, number of health workers, commuting patterns, fertility, & more.

@MPRnews @gundersondan @mnhealth The result of this tinkering let me predict about 55% of variation in senior vaccination rates with four significant variables, including non-senior vax rate, % with a college degree, and log10 of total population. Health worker share wasn’t signif — but Native pop share WAS.

@MPRnews @gundersondan @mnhealth A 1% increase in a county’s population of Native Americans was associated with about a .73% increase in the share of seniors who’ve been vaccinated, controlling for under-65 vax rates, population & education.

Interesting given @gundersondan’s story: mprnews.org/story/2021/02/…