How many people are vaccinated in Kansas? Here’s where the state ranks, NYT data show

Kansas ranks 31st in the country on its COVID-19 vaccination efforts among adults, according to The New York Times.

Sixty-one percent of the state’s adults have had at least one dose. That’s slightly behind a national rate of 66%.

Vermont leads in vaccination efforts at 85% while Missouri sits at 55%, coming in 44th on The Times’ list, which includes U.S. territories.

According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the state has administered 2,305,528 vaccine doses.

Forty-nine percent of the state’s total population has received at least one dose, putting it 35th in the country.

Johnson and Douglas counties have the highest rate of residents with at least one dose. Stevens and Cherokee counties have the lowest rate in the state.

Kansas has the 25th highest rate of new cases per 100,000 residents, according to The Times. Missouri has the highest rate in the nation with a 45% increase in cases over the past seven days.

Physicians at The University of Kansas Health System expressed concern about the Delta variant and encouraged people to get vaccinated.

“The vaccines have 95% effectiveness against severe hospitalization and death. You can still get sick with it, it’s just that you’re going to get a lot less sick,” said chief medical officer Steve Stites. “And remember the other reason for vaccination is that it helps protect others because you don’t tend to spread the disease as much and by having a vaccine, the virus is less likely to reproduce a lot inside of us and therefore create variants.”

Wastewater testing shows the proportion of cases attributed to the Delta variant has been rising in Kansas, KDHE Secretary Lee Norman said earlier this month. It’s also been detected in wastewater samples from the Kansas City area.

Kansas has recorded 317,017 total cases including 5,139 deaths since the pandemic began.