STILL DEBATING A COVID VACCINE? HERE'S SOME CRYSTAL-CLEAR DATA FOR YOU

As of the end of August, 2021, 51 percent of the US population have been fully vaccinated for Covid-19. That means that 49 percent have not, despite the vaccine being widely available and free. Still, 61 percent have gotten at least one shot, so that leaves "only" 39 percent of the US population who have so far chosen not to seek or accept Covid-19 vaccination.

That means that more than 129 million Americans remain un-vaccinated, giving the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and especially the highly contagious delta mutant more than enough unprotected targets to continue to cause widespread illness, hospitalizations and death. Those 129 million unvaccinated people also comprise an enormous human petri dish in which the virus can continue to multiply and mutate.

Vaccination vs. hospitalization by state

Credit: NYT

Just in case some of those 129 million might be amenable to real-life, on-the-ground data about the life-saving benefits of the vaccine, here are some brand-new, nation-wide county-by-county research findings:

                                                                          Credit: Jeffrey Harris, MD

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, a total of 147 million people. He used vaccination data as of mid-July, 2020 and compared them to Covid cases and hospitalizations between July 30 and August 12. You can read a pre-print of the research report here.

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 vaccination rate correlated with a 28.3 percent reduction in Covid-19 cases.

The difference in Covid-caused hospitalizations in less- 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. 

That means that for every 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.

So what's the bottom line of this large, detailed nationwide study? Basically, any region that can get 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.

Lets translate those reductions in Covid cases and hospitalizations into lives saved:

In the US to date, we've suffered 39,662,129 confirmed Covid-19 cases. Among those, 2,675,000 have been hospitalized and 654,668 people have died. 

That means that for every 100,000 US cases, we're likely to see 1650 deaths. 

Thanks to an incredibly quick learning curve within the medical profession, the percentage of Americans who survive after being hospitalized for Covid-19 increased from 78.9 percent in early 2021 to 93.5 percent in August. Still, that means that even now the death rate for hospitalized Covid patients is 6.5 percent, meaning that out of every 100,000 Americans hospitalized for Covid, 6500 are likely to die.

As of the end of August, 2021, the US is registering more than 140,000 new Covid cases per day, or 980,000 per week. We're seeing an average of 12,297 new hospitalization per day, or 86,079 per week, and 1163 deaths per day, or 8,141 deaths per week.

Looking just weeks into the future, this study tells us that if just 10 percent of the 129,000,000 un-vaccinated Americans were to get vaccinated, we could avoid approximately 275,000 new Covid-19 cases, prevent 38,650 hospitalizations, and save at least 2500 lives--every week!

Dr. Harris believes we can do this. He says that among his patients he has encountered many "reasons" for not getting vaccinated. He recognizes that some people are "encapsulated in a misinformation bubble from which there seems to be no escape." Others, however, may be reachable, especially if there are tangible, real-life consequences to not be being vaccinated, such as loss of a job or not being able to enter restaurants or other businesses. 

"I expect many will come around," he says. Let's hope he's right.

Worth getting the jabs? You decide.

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REA/8-29-21

Vaccination rates ranged from below 30 percent in three counties in Georgia to over 65 percent in several counties in Maryland, Massachusetts, California and Washington. 

Want to see what an advanced humanoid robot can do? Check out this video from Boston Dynamics

 Just take a look:

 Atlas | Partners in Parkour - YouTube

Atlas | Partners in Parkour - YouTube

SOME ACTUAL DATA ABOUT BREAKTHROUGH COVID INFECTIONS

By now we've all heard about breakthrough covid cases--fully vaccinated people who still end up testing positive for covid. The standard line is that such cases are rare, that even if vaccinated people do catch covid, they are likely to have only mild symptoms. 

I've now come across some actual data, from Oklahoma and the District of Columbia, the two US state-level entities that publish detailed information about overall case rates and case rates among vaccinated citizens.

   Credit: Healthwatch Lambeth

Here's the lowdown:

In Oklahoma to date, 506,020 people out of a population of 3,956,971 have tested positive for covid. That's 12.8 percent of the population.

Of those 3,956,971 Oklahomans, 1,979,236 are fully vaccinated, either with the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine--almost exactly 50 percent. Of those nearly two million vaccinated citizens, just 2,514 have suffered a breakthrough covid infection. That's just 0.127 percent of the vaccinated group.

So, if we compare a case rate of 12.8 percent with a case rate of 0.127 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated Oklahomans are slightly more than 100 times as likely to come down with covid as their vaccinated peers.

Let's see how the stats for DC compare:

DC has a population of 705,749. Of these, to date, 52,005 have tested positive for covid, for an overall case rate of 7.37 percent.

Among the DC population, 299,020--42 percent--are fully vaccinated, again with one of the same three vaccines. Among that group there have been 546 breakthrough cases; a vaccinated case rate of 0.183 percent.

Comparing 0.183 percent vs 7.37 percent, it looks as though unvaccinated residents of DC are 40 times more likely to have had covid than their vaccinated neighbors.

As reported by Nicoletta Lanese of LiveScience.com here, the three vaccines vary consistently in their effectiveness. Here's a breakdown of the breakthrough percentages:

                         Oklahoma             DC             

Moderna              0.12                0.13            

Pfizer                    0.17                0.20

J & J                     0.21                0.32

Overall                0.127              0.183

(Note that the overall case rates for vaccinated people are not exact averages of the rates for the three vaccines because different numbers of people received each of the three vaccines.)

Based on the data from Oklahoma and DC, it would be fair to conclude that fully vaccinated people are somewhere between 40 and 100 times less likely to catch covid than are their unvaccinated fellow citizens. In addition, as has been reported, those who do have a breakthrough case are far less likely to progress to severe illness, hospitalization or death. 

Of course, further data could modify this, but for now, I'm extremely glad to be fully vaccinated, congratulate everyone who has gotten their shots, and strongly urge anyone who has not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Being 40 to 100 times safer is a very big deal.

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REA 8/12/2021

KIDS URGENTLY NEED TO BE PROTECTED FROM COVID TOO

 If you have children or grandchildren, or if you just care about kids, please read this piece from the Washington Post:

Children with covid can get very ill, as I have seen in my hospital - The Washington Post 

It's still rare, but kids too can get severe cases of Covid

Credit: vperemen

The latest statistics show that children now account for 15 percent of new covid cases in the US. Since they can't yet be vaccinated, their protection must come from adult vaccination, facemasks, social distancing, testing and tracing--all the sensible public health measures that we're familiar with (and of course very tired of). But let's do it for the sake of the children.

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REA 8/11/21

IF WE'RE TALKING JOBS, PAINT THEM GREEN

I'm constantly adding research reports to an already bulging computer file labeled CLIMATE-ECO-TOPIA. The thrust of these findings, dating back many years, is that transitioning to a sustainable green economy, although costly, would provide so many benefits in terms of human health and well-being, the environment, and the economy that it's not just necessary and urgent, but basically a no-brainer.

Solar Panel Installer//Credit: Maxpixel

I'll be writing about other aspects of this later, but today I'm just going to report on three job-related findings:

First, as of the end of 2019, the US Green Economy employed ten times more people than the entire fossil fuel industry. As reported in New Scientist on October 15 of that year, the entire fossil fuel sector of the US economy employed around 900,000 people. In contrast, the Green Economy, broadly defined, employed at least 9.5 million Americans--more than ten times those fossil fuel jobs.

Those jobs comprised about 4 percent of all US employment and the green sector now accounts for 7 percent of the GDP, about $1.3 trillion per year. 

Marc Maslin, a geoscientist at University College London, and co-author of the underlying study, pulls no punches. "The Trump administration with the 'America first' approach of 'fossil fuels are good', is stupid when it comes to economics," he says. "If you want to be a hard-nosed neoliberal economist you would say, 'Let's support the green economy as much as possible.'"

Looking globally, research published in the July 23 edition of the journal One Earth shows that if nations took the necessary steps to transition to a green economy and by doing so meet the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global heating below 2 degrees C, that would create far more new jobs than would be lost in the declining fossil-fuel sector, a net gain of at least 8 million jobs.

Many of those jobs would be in the U.S.  A separate study reported in Renewable Energy World estimates that adding enough rooftop or community solar panels to power 30 million American homes would add 1.77 million jobs. In addition, in just five years this would save $69 billion in energy bills and keep the same amount of carbon out of the atmosphere as taking 42 million cars off the road or closing 48 coal-burning power plants.

Talk about a win-win solution--and one we need to push forward on urgently.

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REA 8/8/2021