This was originally a Facebook post of mine from 2021-4-11, and is archived here as a curiosity. Minor changes to formatting, as well as basic copy-edits, may have been made in the transition from Facebook post to web format.
Less than a week ago, CNN published the following headline:
Without retreading all the problems with it, a "data editor" first got confused by math and calculated that Georgia was on pace to offer vaccines to all its citizens only by November, and then got confused by a calendar and thought that was the end of the year. It was a silly sensationalist article. The truth is that vaccines have already been made available to most people who want them, and will be for everyone else by summer -- not counting children.
But today I decided to check in and see how Georgia was progressing. A website, vaccinefinder.org, allows you to search for available vaccines by zip code, and another website, georgia-demographics.com has a list of all the zip codes in Georgia, from the largest population to the smallest.
So, like any curious person would do, I performed an individual search for each of the 727 zip codes in Georgia. The search function chooses a radius of either 1, 5, 10, 25, or 50 miles in which to search for vaccines.
Starting with the largest zip codes and working my way down by population, the first 166 codes all had vaccines available within a 1-mile or 5-mile radius. That accounts for just about every zip code between 20,000 and 70,000 people. As you work your way into more rural parts of Georgia, the distance you have to travel to reach an open vaccine appointment increases a bit.
All in all, 239 zip codes are within 1 mile of an appointment, another 171 within 5 miles, 155 within 10 miles, and 161 within 25 miles. If you add that all up, that makes 726 zip codes. So practically everyone in Georgia has been offered an available vaccine appointment within 25 miles.
All that remains is the inhabitants of zip code 31631. So out of the approximately 11 million inhabitants of Georgia, that just leaves the 456 inhabitants of that small zip code, for whom vaccinefinder.org the nearest available vaccines are 27 miles away.
Anyone with a car in Georgia can get an appointment now.
CNN suggested, on April 6th, that people in Georgia would be waiting till the end of the year for vaccines. As of April 11th, everyone in Georgia has been offered a shot.
That resolved itself quickly.
This page is released under the CC0 1.0 license.