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Who are the 4.1 million people vaccinated in Massachusetts?

Use this tool to see who got vaccinated

Vince Dixon, Globe Staff
January 14, 2021 | Updated June 24, 2021
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Illustration by Ryan Huddle
 During the first six months of Massachusetts’s vaccination rollout, The Boston Globe tracked which demographic groups in the state were getting vaccinated, compared to other groups. Each week the Globe updated the following visualizations with vaccination data provided by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After the state reached its goal of vaccinating 4.1 million residents the week of June 20, 2021, the tracker was updated one last time. To see the current status of vaccinations in Massachusetts, see our weekly updates.

More than 4.1 million people in Massachusetts, 60 percent of the state, are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The state’s goal was to vaccinate that number of residents by the start of June 2021. Despite the delay and several hiccups throughout the vaccination rollout, Massachusetts has one of the highest vaccination rates in the United States, even as the country is set to miss the national target of distributing at least one dose of the vaccine to 70 percent of American adults by the Fourth of July.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of the United States in March 2020 and claimed more than 17,600 lives in Massachusetts. The plan to vaccinate the majority of residents by the summer of 2021 seemed abstract when the first vaccines were produced in the Winter of 2020.  Initially, the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were the only shots available to prioritized groups in December. Later, the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine increased the number of shots. The inoculations were gradually distributed in three phases. Seniors, who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus, were among the first groups prioritized and are currently the most-vaccinated group in the Commonwealth. Today a vaccine is available to all residents 12 years old and older, and business in the state is slowly returning to normal.

The rollout got off to a rough start. In January, Massachusetts had one of the slowest distribution rates in the country. Technical difficulties and high demand early in the year made it difficult for many people to register for vaccination appointments. Despite the vaccine being currently available to most residents, the uptake remains unevenly distributed across race and age. Even with state-driven attempts to encourage Black and Latino people to get vaccinated, those groups remain one of the least-vaccinated groups in the state.

Continue scrolling for guided highlights showing what portion of the state and its sub-communities have been vaccinated compared to others. Skip ahead to explore the data on your own.

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out of in the state have been fully vaccinated.
 = 10,000 people
Source: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; last updated: 6/24/21. Values in visual rounded to nearest 10,000th
Massachusetts distributed its first vaccine doses in mid-December. Nearly 4.8 million people in Massachusetts have gotten at least one dose of either of the three vaccines, according to the CDC. That is 80 percent of residents 12 years old and older who are eligible to receive a shot.
People 65 and older are among the most vulnerable to the virus, with more than 80 percent of COVID-19-related deaths in the U.S., according to the CDC. State data shows that 84 percent of seniors 65 and older are fully vaccinated. Meanwhile 82 percent of seniors 75 and older are fully vaccinated.
The first phase of the state’s rollout prioritized health care workers and first responders. Even though an estimated 14 percent of health care workers in hospitals and nursing homes in Massachusetts are Black according to research center Boston Indicators, Black residents accounted for less than 5 percent of vaccinations during the first phase. This rate has increased only slightly in Phase 2 and Phase 3, in which each week Black residents consistently accounted for 5 percent of full vaccinations, despite being 7 percent of the state population.
Inoculation has been the slowest among Latino residents. Only 40 percent of Latino people in Massachusetts have been vaccinated. The group also makes up only 8 percent of total vaccinations, despite representing 12 percent of the state population.
The state’s vaccination report shows there were  more women getting vaccinated than men. Men now account for 46 percent of fully vaccinated residents even though they make up 48 percent of the state’s population.
Women account for 54 percent of vaccinations, and represent 51 percent of the state population. In Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the rollout women accounted for a much larger percent of vaccinations, possibly due to frontline workers being more likely female, according to Boston Indicators.

Use the tool below to see what portion of different demographic groups in the state have been vaccinated.

See who has been vaccinated:
vaccinated out of from this group.
 = 10,000 people
Source: Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; last updated: 6/24/21. Values in visual rounded to nearest 10,000th

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