evidence: Similar content being viewed by others [...] We collected our state-level epidemiological data (total COVID-19 cases, hospitalization, and tests) from the COVID Tracking Project36, a commonly cited source37,38,39. The vaccination data across states were obtained from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID data tracker40, where "people vaccinated" reflects the total number of people who have received at least one vaccine dose, and "people fully vaccinated" reflects the number who have received both doses prescribed by the vaccination protocol. We downloaded the CDC vaccination data from an open-source GitHub project by Our World in Data41. Both the BNT162b2 (Pfizer/BioNTech) vaccine and the mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine require two doses9. In addition, the CDC shares data on COVID-19 vaccine distribution allocations by state for both the Pfizer42 and Moderna43 vaccines, as provided by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs under the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. [...] Department of Health Care Organization and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, USA