Logan County's reported vaccination rate for COVID-19 is expected to increase significantly because of changes the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment made s to the state's COVID-19 vaccine data dashboard Monday.

Effective immediately, the county-level dashboard will no longer include state, county, and city jail populations in the county-level denominators of vaccine coverage rates. Inmate vaccination data has had a disproportionate negative impact on COVID-19 vaccination rates for several counties, making their county rates artificially lower than actuality.

Due to the fluid nature of incarcerated individuals, vaccinated inmates are not attributed to their current correctional facility, but instead the county of last known permanent residence. People vaccinated in these facilities are counted in their county of residence listed in the Colorado Immunization Information System, which in most cases will not match the county of the facility where they are currently held.

Counties with significant prison populations will see an increase in their vaccination rates as a result of this change, as only the total eligible county population in the vaccine coverage rate equation will be reduced. Fremont County, Crowley County, Logan County, and Bent County will see the largest changes in population and vaccination rate as a result of this update.

As of 4:30 p.m. Monday, Logan County's vaccination rate for residents with one or more doses of vaccine was 38 percent, fourth-lowest in Colorado.

In addition, COVID-19 doses administered by federal agencies will be captured in county-level vaccination rates. This data will include doses administered by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Department of Veterans Affairs and the United States Department of Defense. Of note: CDPHE already receives patient-level vaccination data from the Indian Health Services, and those numbers are already included in county-level vaccination rates. CDPHE will only receive aggregate data from these other three federal agencies and will not receive any patient-level information. These doses will be counted in the county where the vaccine recipient resides.

This update will also include new age breakouts in statewide and county-level vaccination data. Users will be able to select age breakouts of 12+, 18+, or 65+ to see the 1+ vaccination rate and up-to-date vaccination rate among these select age groups in statewide and county-level data.

Vaccination remains the best protection against COVID-19 and its variants, and we encourage all Coloradans 12 and older to get vaccinated without delay at one of the more than 1,500 vaccine providers across the state.

Continue to stay up to date by visiting covid19.colorado.gov.