The good news about Covid-19 vaccination in the US is that as of the end of August, 2021, 51 percent of the US population are fully vaccinated against Covid and 61 percent have gotten at least one jab.
The bad news is that leaves 39 percent of the US population--129 million people--un-vaccinated.
Those 129 million un-vaccinated Americans provide the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and especially the highly contagious delta mutant with more than enough unprotected targets to continue to cause widespread illness, hospitalizations and death, including among children. The unvaccinated remain at significantly higher risk than those who are fully vaccinated and, unfortunately, are serving as an huge human petri dish in which the virus continues to multiply and mutate.
In case even a few of those 129 million might respond to up-to-the-minute data about the benefits of the vaccine, here are some recent, nationwide, county-by-county research findings:
Jeffrey Harris, a physician and emeritus professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gathered data on vaccination rates, Covid-19 case rates and Covid-related hospitalizations in the 112 most populated US counties, home to a total of 147 million people. He used vaccination data as of mid-July, 2021 and compared them to Covid cases and hospitalizations between July 30 and August 12. You can read a preprint of the research report here . (The paper has not yet been peer reviewed)
The results are striking.
In the 56 counties in the lower half of the vaccination range, there were 548 cases per 100,000 population during the two-week study period, but just 281 cases per 100,000 in the 56 counties in the upper half of the vaccination rates.
People in the less-vaccinated counties suffered 1.95 times as many diagnosed Covid-19 cases than people in the more-vaccinated counties.
A ten percent increase in the vaccination rate correlated with a 28.3 percent reduction in Covid-19 cases.
The difference in Covid-caused hospitalizations in less-vaccinated compared to more-vaccinated counties was even more dramatic. In the 56 less-vaccinated counties there were 55.4 hospitalizations per 100,000 people during the two-week study period, compared to 20.5 per 100,000 in the more-vaccinated counties.
For every Covid hospitalization in the more-vaccinated counties, there were 2.7 hospitalizations in the less-vaccinated ones.
A ten-percent increase in vaccination rate correlated with a whopping 44.9 percent decrease in Covid hospitalizations.
What's the bottom line of this study? Basically, that any county or state that can encourage 10 percent more of its citizens to get vaccinated can expect to cut its Covid case rate by 28 percent and its Covid hospitalization rate by 45 percent.
Let's translate a 28 percent reduction in Covid cases or a 45 percent reduction in Covid hospitalizations into lives saved:
In the US to date , we've suffered 39,662,129 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Among those, 2,675,000 people have been hospitalized and 654,668 have died, more than in any other country. That means that for every 100,000 US cases, we're likely to see 1650 deaths.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
3
3
2
