Gov. Larry Hogan said this week that Maryland is outperforming most other states when it comes to getting lifesaving doses of coronavirus vaccine into the arms of its residents. But the data point he used to make that case doesn’t paint a complete picture.
During a news conference Tuesday, Hogan said Maryland has “done more than 28 other states. Number of vaccines [administered], we’re at 22nd.”
“I’d rather be No. 1,” added Hogan, a Republican. “We’re doing the best we can, and we’re doing better than most states.”
The state has since moved up, with its nearly 1.5 million vaccine doses administered ranking 19th among the 50 states, according to the latest state-by-state comparisons from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Thursday afternoon.
But that ranking doesn’t factor in the number of people in those states. Maryland also ranks 19th among states in population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The top four states in that category — California, Texas, Florida and New York — are also, in order, the top four states in total doses administered.
There are two common metrics that take population into account: number of doses given per 100,000 residents, where Maryland currently ranks 31st, and the percentage of the population that has received at least one dose of vaccine, where Maryland ranks 27th, according to the CDC.
Asked for comment about these rankings in the bottom half of states not aligning with the governor’s “better than most” comment, Hogan spokesman Mike Ricci again pointed to the state’s rank in total vaccines administered, as well as how it’s performing in other measures.
Maryland ranks 13th in number of doses administered to residents and staff of long-term care facilities, groups particularly at risk to the virus. The state is ranks 15th in the percentage of the population that’s fully vaccinated, meaning residents who have received both doses required for best protection, and in the seven-day average of doses administered daily, according to the CDC.
Ricci also noted the percentage of Marylanders 65 and older who have received at least one dose of vaccine, which grew to more than 45% Friday.
“This, I can assure you, is also better than most states,” Ricci wrote in an email.
About 50% of the roughly 54 million 65-and-older residents nationwide have received their first vaccine, according to the CDC data.
CDC data also suggests that Maryland is one of the nation’s bottom 10 states in putting the doses it has received into the arms of residents. A CDC tally based on doses it says the federal government delivered says Maryland has administered 71.0% of those doses, ranking it 41st among all states.
But the state disputes that figure.
The agency’s latest data shows more than 2.1 million doses have been delivered to Maryland, the 18th most for any state, but Maryland’s coronavirus dashboard states that its providers have received just under 1.7 million doses of vaccine from the federal government.
Hogan explained Tuesday that some of the doses the CDC says have gone to Maryland instead went to federal agencies in the state, meaning Maryland “had no control” of the doses or who they went to.
“We’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” Hogan said. “We’ve utilized just about every single one we have.”
A CDC spokeswoman confirmed the discrepancy between the two figures is being looked into.
“States will have the most up to date information for their jurisdictions,” the CDC’s Kate Fowlie said in an email.
Hogan said Tuesday that about 230,000 of the doses have gone to federal agencies, though the difference between the state’s and CDC’s figures was about 360,000 then and has since grown to more than 400,000. Regardless, that gap affects where Maryland stands in another measure of getting doses to its residents.
By the state’s count Friday morning, Maryland had given out 87.4% of its doses.
And Maryland doesn’t appear to be alone in having a discrepancy with the federal government. Neighboring Virginia, for example, says it has received about 300,000 fewer doses than the CDC data show.
