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Why counting vaccinated Americans doesn’t always add up

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Washington Post, April 2022

Millions of Americans are now eligible for a second covid-19 booster shot. By all accounts, efforts to vaccinate older people in many states have gone well — unbelievably well, in fact. According to official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) counts of vaccinations among those above age 65 as compared with census data, 117 percent of those in that demographic in Massachusetts have had at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine. New Hampshire, not to be outdone, would show that no less than 140 percent of that group are vaccinated.

Remarkably, data for 26 states (including all of New England) and Washington, D.C., would indicate total numbers of vaccinated individuals 65 and older are running above 100 percent. How is it possible that government figures appear to show that more people have gotten vaccinated than in fact exist in that age group?

Continue reading at the Washington Post.

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