The vaccination data source for The Kansas City Region COVID-19 Data is changing. When the hub’s vaccination page was created, the best sources available for county-level vaccination data were the Missouri state website and Kansas jurisdictions’ county dashboards. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has started publishing county-level vaccination data. By moving to this as the data source, the hub will be able to provide more timely, accurate, consistent and complete data.
How to view the new data source
Each evening before 8 p.m., MARC staff scrapes the CDC COVID Data Tracker website (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view) to get the latest data for the hub. To view the same vaccination data on the CDC website, select “vaccinations” from the “Map Data” drop-down menu, then select a county either on the map or using the “State” and “County or metro area” drop-downs above. Once these selections are made, a “Vaccinations in X county” table will appear further down the page, displaying counts and percentages of the population fully vaccinated. This is the data being scraped from the CDC site to populate the hub.
What changes in the data can we expect?
- The CDC reports fewer metrics than many state and local sources.
- What is included: Counts and percentages of people fully vaccinated in three different age blocks: total for all ages, total for ages >= 18, and total for ages >= 65.
- What is not included: They don’t currently provide any data for the number of people partially vaccinated (one dose) or the total doses given/distributed.
- The CDC includes all vaccinations administered within a state. Certain state and local sources may or may not include vaccines administered through the federal vaccine programs. This and timing differences lead to discrepancies between CDC sources and others.
- The CDC does not separate Kansas City proper from the counties it is a part of. Vaccination data from Kansas City will no longer available as a viewing option on the hub.
- MARC began collecting this data on April 30th, 2021. Vaccination data for before April 30th will not be available on the hub.
Why is this change happening?
The CDC COVID Data Tracker website is the most timely, accurate, consistent and complete data currently available at the county level for all counties in the Kansas City region. This data will best inform users of the current vaccination situation at the regional level.
When is this change happening?
Beginning May 25th, the new vaccinations page will be available on the hub as a ‘beta’ version, alongside the existing version of the hub. The two versions will be available side-by-side for about a week, before the previous version is sunset, leaving the CDC data source as that for the Vaccinations page on the hub moving forward.
As always, please contact covidhub@marc.org with any questions or concerns.