The state has released new COVID-19 data on vaccinations in every Massachusetts town and zip code, broken down by age, sex, and race and ethnicity.
The numbers offer a fresh way to examine vaccine equity.
They will be valuable to local authorities working to make sure eligible people are getting vaccinated, said Vaira Harik, who tracks COVID-19 data for Barnstable County in her role as deputy director of human services.
“It’s a great boon to us who are trying to plan vaccinations and trying to make sure that everyone who is eligible has at least been reached out to — and particularly people who are homebound, or might speak a different language, or may be not that connected with what's been going on,” she said.
The data show, for example, how many people in each town age 75 and older have yet to receive their first dose.
They also show how many people of different races are receiving the vaccine, compared to their share of the town’s population.
The information can be found on Mass.gov, under “Municipality Vaccination Data.”
Harik said she’d like to see a similar breakdown on COVID-19 deaths. She said the state originally listed the town, gender, and age of each fatality, but stopped when the numbers began to climb.
“By April, they just had too much data ... to be able to do that,” she said.
