Data Note: Key Updates from the Health Center COVID-19 Survey (Week #49): The Pace of COVID-19 Vaccine Administration is Rapidly Increasing at Community Health Centers

A new data note summarizes and analyzes HRSA’s COVID-19 Survey data reported for the week of March 5, 2021 and presents updated trend data for the eleven-month period from April 3, 2020 through March 5, 2021.

Nearly all community health centers (99 percent of all responding health centers) are providing COVID-19 diagnostic testing, and health centers have tested more than 9 million patients for COVID-19 virus over eleven-months.
In the aggregate, a total of 1,147,905 health center patients have tested positive for the virus, accounting for four percent or 1 in 25 of all recorded U.S. cases.
Patients reported as racial and ethnic minorities, particularly Hispanic/Latino patients, accounted disproportionately for CHC patients who have tested positive, both this week and consistently over the eleven months of survey data.
Vaccine information has been reported since January 8, 2021. For the nine week period ending March 5th, nearly 158,000 staff members, or 62 percent of all community health center FTEs, had completed their COVID-19 vaccine series, while 806,024 health center patients, or 3.7 percent of those eligible, had been fully vaccinated. The increasing pace of vaccines evident over the nine-week period reflects both the increased vaccine supply generally, the direct allocation of vaccine supplies to selected community health centers, and expanded eligibility for COVID-19 vaccinations based on age or health conditions.
While vaccine supply has increased, nearly half (45 percent) of responding health centers reported that vaccine deployment was challenged by supply constraints this current reporting period.

Health centers have risen to meet the challenges of the pandemic, with expansive testing and new vaccine capacity. Still, while operational capacity has improved in recent months, the pandemic has taken an enormous financial toll on health centers, resulting in an estimated $4.95 billion in cumulative patient revenue losses, or 15.8 percent of national 2019 health center revenue. These findings underscore the rationale for the Administration’s health center investments, and the continued need for the expansion of health center testing resources and full participation of health centers in vaccine distribution.

The data note was produced by the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative.
Download the data note

Data Note: Key Updates from the Health Center COVID-19 Survey (Week #49): The Pace of COVID-19 Vaccine Administration is Rapidly Increasing at Community Health Centers.