Hospitalization rates for the unvaccinated

Overall, Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are down in the United States, but much of that is from vaccinations. When you look at only those who are not vaccinated, the rates are still high in many areas of the country. Dan Keating and Leslie Shapiro for The Washington Post show the differences.

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Four types of people who prevent full vaccination

The United States vaccination rate was rolling for a while there, but it has slowed down. Sema Sgaier for NYT Opinion talks about why that is, breaking it down to four general types of people who are hesitant or don’t plan on getting vaccinated:

After conducting a national survey of U.S. adults, we grouped people into distinct profiles based on their shared beliefs and barriers to getting the vaccine. This approach, borrowed from the marketing world, is called psychobehavioral segmentation. It will allow health officials to target their strategies in ways that ignore demographic categories, like age and race. In the United States, we used this approach to identify five distinct personas: the Enthusiasts, the Watchful, the Cost-Anxious, the System Distrusters and the Covid Skeptics.

The last two groups will be harder to convince, but for the watchful and cost-anxious, I hope they look at the numbers.

The risk of side effects is very low (especially when you compare to the everyday things we do to live), your risk of infection or hospitalization goes way down when you get vaccinated, and you don’t have to pay anything.

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Voting and vaccination rate

Danielle Ivory, Lauren Leatherby and Robert Gebeloff for The New York looked at voting from the 2020 election and vaccination rates at the state and county levels. The strength of correlation is surprising. The existence of the correlation is not.

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GDP and vaccination rates

For The New York Times, Keith Collins and Josh Holder look at the relationship between country wealth and vaccination rates. Wealthier countries made deals with drug makers earlier, which means poorer countries are not able to secure as many vaccines.

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Improving vaccine distribution in all states

Lauren Leatherby and Amy Schoenfeld Walker reporting for The New York Times:

“Every state is improving,” said Claire Hannan, the executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. “We still don’t have enough to vaccinate everyone over 75, so it doesn’t necessarily feel different for people who are trying to find the vaccine, but we are in a much better place now.”

Good.

Find the most current CDC vaccination data here. You can also find weekly distribution counts by state for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.

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How quickly the U.S. is vaccinating vs. how long it’ll take to get back to “normal”

Vaccines provide light at the end of the tunnel, but when we finally get to the end depends on the speed at which we vaccinate. The Washington Post considers Joe Biden’s pledge for 100 million shots in his first 100 days in the context of herd immunity and calendar days.

I appreciate the time spent explaining the intersection of these two lines.

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Impact of vaccines throughout history

Vaccination and cases

Not that anyone who does not vaccinate their kids cares, but Tynan DeBold and Dov Friedman for the Wall Street Journal show the change in number of cases for various diseases after a vaccination is introduced.

Each row represents a state, and each column represents a year. So each cell represents the number of cases per 10,000 people, in a state for a given year. The above shows the change for measles cases, which you can see a quick rate decrease after the introduction of the vaccination in 1963.

I'm not sold on the color scheme, which seems arbitrary with six shades from minimum to maximum. Saturation only changes at the low rates likely used to accentuate the drop after a vaccine. However, as you mouse over cells in each grid, an indicator appears in the legend to show where the rate is in the color scale, so they can kind of get away with it.

Kinda like it, kinda don't. Still important information.

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Vaccination rates for every kindergarten in California

Vaccination rates in California

The New York Times mapped the vaccination rate for every kindergarten in California. Bubbles are sized by enrollment and colored by rate, where red represents under 60 percent and blue represents at or above the rate recommended by the CDC for herd immunity.

Glad the Times was able to get this data together. Important.

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Vaccination rate and measles outbreak simulation

Vax rate and infection simulation

You've probably heard about herd immunity by now. Vaccinations help the individual and the community, especially those who are unable to receive vaccinations for various reasons. The Guardian simulated what happens at various vaccination rates.

Luckily, the measles vaccine — administered in the form of the MMR for measles, mumps and rubella — is very effective. If delivered fully (two doses), it will protect 99% of people against the disease. But, like all vaccines, it’s not perfect: 1% of cases are likely to result in vaccine failure, meaning recipients won’t develop an immune response to the given disease, leaving them vulnerable. Even with perfect vaccination, one of every 100 people would be susceptible to measles, but that’s much better than the alternative.

If you're still unsure, please consult this flowchart to decide.

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Flowchart: Should you vaccinate your child?

Vaccine flowchart

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. A handy flowchart by Scott Bateman.

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