---
title: Vaccine Refusal Rate Additional Data
description: ...in which I followup the vaccine refusal data from yesterday with more details about the flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines.
image: https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hubfs/flu2.png
---

# Vaccine Refusal Rate Additional Data

March 22, 2026

[benchmarks](https://chipsblog.pcc.com/tag/benchmarks)

Readers of the my previous post, where we look at the [increasing rate of vaccine refusal](https://chipsblog.pcc.com/impact-of-anti-vaccine-policies-on-well-visits-part-2-vaccine-refusals), surely want to better understand the massive volatility of refusal rates for flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines.  As I mentioned, the months with massive refusal rates line up with off-season timing - far fewer vaccines are being refused, though the rate is much higher.  

Let's take a look at what I mean.  Here are the vaccine volume rates with the refusal volumes for flu:

![flu2](https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hs-fs/hubfs/flu2.png?width=743&height=418&name=flu2.png)  
As you can see, flu refusal *rates* are highest in the summer time, even exceeding a majority of the opportunities.  June and July of 2024, for example, had many more flu shot refusals than administrations (~75%)...but we're talking about a few 100 opportunities.  Contrast that to October 2024, where the refusal rate was 12.3% and our clients administered just under 200,000 flu shots.

Nonetheless, the flu shot refusal rate has climbed significantly since 2019 and 2020 during peak months (Sep/Oct/Nov) - it was ~7% in 2020 and over 15% in 2025.

For COVID shots, the refusal rate distinction is much more obvious:  
![covid](https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hs-fs/hubfs/covid.png?width=726&height=408&name=covid.png)

...but as I mentioned, it looks like the refusal rate for COVID vaccines is, in fact, dropping.  Down from ~33% during peak 2023 to 22% in 2025.  Small victories!

For RSV, we only have the last 2 years of data:

![rsv](https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hs-fs/hubfs/rsv.png?width=819&height=461&name=rsv.png)

The first year, refusal rate was ~7.7%.  The last 2 years, it's been ~11.5%, no real change.  Of those 85K kids our clients vaccinated...I wonder how many of them avoided an awful trip to the hospital?  Or even death?  We will never know, I suppose, but the increase in refusal rates should make everyone concerned.

Share: [Email ](mailto:?body=https://chipsblog.pcc.com/vaccine-refusal-rate-additional-data) Facebook [Twitter ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://chipsblog.pcc.com/vaccine-refusal-rate-additional-data&text=Vaccine%20Refusal%20Rate%20Additional%20Data) LinkedIn

## Comments

4 Comments

# Subscribe to Chip's Blog

```json
{
  "@context" : "https://schema.org",
  "@type" : "BlogPosting",
  "author" : {
    "@type" : "Person",
    "name" : "Chip Hart",
    "url" : "https://chipsblog.pcc.com/author/chip-hart"
  },
  "dateModified" : "2026-03-22T16:57:50.726Z",
  "datePublished" : "2026-03-22T16:57:25.000Z",
  "headline" : "Vaccine Refusal Rate Additional Data",
  "image" : [ "https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hubfs/flu2.png" ],
  "mainEntityOfPage" : {
    "@id" : "https://chipsblog.pcc.com/vaccine-refusal-rate-additional-data",
    "@type" : "WebPage"
  },
  "publisher" : {
    "@type" : "Organization",
    "logo" : {
      "@type" : "ImageObject",
      "url" : "https://chipsblog.pcc.com/hubfs/confessions.png"
    },
    "name" : "Chip's Blog"
  }
}
```