Covid vaccines may have saved 2,000,000 American lives

 How effective are the Covid vaccines? Here's some new data:

A team of epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the California Department of Public health developed two different data-based models of the course of the Covid pandemic in California in the ten months after vaccines became available. They published their results in the April 22, 2022 edition of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

Projected Covid deaths without vaccination
(Image by Eric C. Schnieder, et al.)   Details   DMCA

Their first model estimated that during the ten months prior to October 16, 2021, Covid vaccinations in California averted 1.52 million infections, 72,930 hospitalizations and 19,430 deaths.

The second model estimated that during those same ten months, vaccinations prevented 1.4 million Covid cases, 84,330 hospitalizations and 22,620 deaths.

The researchers limited themselves to pointing out that these results "can be generalized across the United States." We can take a stab at doing that if we assume that the vaccines averted cases, hospitalizations and deaths at roughly the same rate across the country as they did in California. By the end of the study period, 23,800,846 Californians were fully vaccinated. At that same time 188,902,483 Americans had been fully vaccinated, or 7.94 times the number in California alone.

Multiplying by that factor, the vaccines conservatively averted 11,116,000 Covid cases, 579,064 hospitalizations and 154,036 deaths in the US in the first 10 months of their availability.

On February 25 of this year I posted an OpEdNews article providing a count--based on the actual differences between week-by-week death rates among unvaccinated and vaccinated people--of how many American lives the Covid vaccines had saved to that date.

My estimate was that 545,000 Americans were still alive because they had gotten vaccinated. It's important to note that those only represented lives saved directly by the vaccines, not infections, hospitalizations or deaths averted among the contacts of people who stayed healthy because they were vaccinated.

Similarly, the UCSF researchers note that their estimates only count people whose lives were saved because they were vaccinated--direct lives saved. They point out that many more Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths were doubtlessly averted among the contacts of vaccinated people. "The true numbers are definitely significantly higher," says lead author Sophia Tan, at UCSF.

To get a sense of how just how much higher, we have a new study by the Commonwealth Fund, a century-old private foundation that promotes effective and equitable health care in the US. They used a highly detailed model that, along with many other factors, accounts for contagion, hospitalization and deaths within people's contact networks. Their study provides estimates through March, 2022.

Those researchers estimate that Covid vaccinations have probably prevented more than 66 million infections, more than 17 million hospitalizations and more than 2 million deaths in the United States.

Given the high cost of health care in the US, we shouldn't be surprised that, according to the Commonwealth study, averting those millions of infections, hospitalizations and deaths saved some $900 billion--that's nearly one trillion dollars--in healthcare costs.

As of April 25, 2022, the US has suffered just under one million Covid deaths. If the 219 million Americans who are fully vaccinated had chosen not to, the number of US Covid deaths would have been much higher, perhaps approaching a shocking 3 million.

The Covid pandemic is at low ebb right now, but it has not disappeared. The vaccines are readily available and free. If you're among the one-third of Americans who have not yet gotten vaccinated, it's not too late to protect yourself and the people you are close to.

Who shouldn't get vaccinated? The informed part of informed consent.

 Ten months after the vaccines became available, we now have meaningful data that can guide people deciding if they should or shouldn't get themselves or their children vaccinated against covid.

The best available data about the actual risks of the mRNA vaccines--specifically the Pfizer/BioNTech shots--come from a joint Israeli-Harvard Medical School study evaluating the medical records of more than 1.6 million people, half of whom received two Pfizer jabs while half remained unvaccinated. I reported on this study here, and you can find the peer-reviewed paper itself, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, here.

Of course. But what are the actual risks and benefits?

Credit: Nick Youngson

The study found that just five side-effects occurred more frequently in the vaccinated groups in the six weeks following vaccination relative to a comparable time period for the unvaccinated group. These included swollen lymph nodes (78.4 additional cases per 100,000 people), shingles (15.8 extra cases per 100,000), appendicitis (5 additional cases per 100,000), Bell's palsy (3.5 additional cases per 100,000) and myocarditis (2.7 additional cases per 100,000, almost all in young men).

If we add all those side-effects together we find an incidence of 105.4 per 100,000 fully vaccinated people.

It's worth noting that those symptoms vary in seriousness. The most frequent--swollen lymph nodes--is a predictable, rarely serious, reaction to vaccination, while the remaining four potentially more serious conditions represent a total of just 27 additional cases per 100,000 vaccinated people.

To keep things simple and clear, you can safely estimate that if you get two rounds of the Pfizer vaccine, your risk of suffering any reaction worse than a sore arm is around 1 in 1000, and your risk of a serious side-effect such as shingles or appendicitis is around 1 out of 3700.

We can compare these risks to the risks from covid itself in a variety of ways. Here are several that readers may find helpful:

Risks from covid in the Israeli-Harvard study: Among the 800,000 participants who remained unvaccinated, a significant number contracted covid. As is typical of covid, not all of those developed serious symptoms. However, far more did experience significant symptoms and sequelae from covid than were seen in their vaccinated peers. These included cardiac arrythmia (166 extra cases per 100,000), acute kidney injury (125.4 extra cases per 100,000), pulmonary embolism--a blood clot in the lung--(61.7 extra cases per 100,000), deep-vein thrombosis (43 extra cases per 100,000), myocardial infarction--a heart attack--(25 extra cases per 100,000), myocarditis (11 extra cases per 100,000), pericarditis (10.9 extra cases per 100,000) and intracranial bleeding (7.6 extra cases per 100,000).

So, in the same 6 week period, the unvaccinated group suffered serious, very serious or potentially fatal symptoms such as acute kidney injury, pulmonary blood clots or heart attacks at a combined rate of 443 per 100,000. That's more than four times the rate of all the vaccine side-effects combined, and 16 times the rate of the potentially serious vaccine side-effects.

Risk of contracting covid in the US as a whole. As of 10/18/21, there have been 45,798,599 recorded covid cases in the US. That's a case rate of 13,733 per 100,000 people, accumulated over 22 months. It's not possible to predict the exact course of the pandemic going forward, but for the average American the risk of contracting covid, say in the next 12 months, is probably 50 or 60 times higher than the risk of any side-effect from the vaccine, and several hundred times higher than the risk of any of the more serious side-effects.

As critics of covid vaccination point out, many covid cases are relatively mild. However, in the US over the course of the pandemic so far, about one out of every 20 people who contracted covid got sick enough to require hospitalization.

Risk of covid hospitalization in the US as a whole. As of 10/18/21, the cumulative covid hospitalization rate in the US reached 694 per 100,000. That implies that the average US resident is 6.6 times more likely to have been hospitalized because of covid than they would have been at risk for any negative reaction to the vaccine, and 26 times more likely to have been hospitalized from covid than to have risked a serious reaction to the vaccine.

Again, the first 22 months of the pandemic don't tell us what the next 22 months will bring, but the risk continues, especially among the unvaccinated.

Again, vaccination critics point out that "covid has a 99 percent survival rate." That's not quite true. In the US so far, 1.6 percent of recorded covid cases have resulted in recorded covid deaths. We can now compare that to the risks from vaccination.

Risk of death from covid in the US as a whole. As of 10/18/21 the cumulative rate of deaths from covid hit 224.5 per 100,000 people. That means that on average, a US resident is 2.1 times more likely to have died from covid since the start of the pandemic to date than to have risked any negative reaction to a vaccine, and 8.3 times more likely to have died as a result of covid than to have risked one of the serious reaction to the vaccine.

Risk of covid deaths state by state. As of 10/18/21, five states had cumulative covid death rates less than 105 deaths per 100,000 population. Those are Oregon (99), Utah (96), Hawaii (87), Alaska (59) and Vermont (55). For residents in those states, which comprise just three percent of the US population, the odds of having died from covid so far in the pandemic are somewhat less than the risk of having any negative reaction to the vaccine, but still two to three times higher than the risk of one of the serious vaccine side-effects. Even in those states, however, the risk of hospitalization from covid is significantly higher than any of the risks from the vaccine.

The remaining 97 percent of Americans live in states where the risks of contracting covid, becoming seriously ill, being hospitalized or dying from covid are greater than the risks of any negative sequelae from the vaccines.

Risk of covid deaths county by county. You can check your county's cumulative covid death rate on this map. If you're in one of the darker blue counties--most of which have very small populations--the cumulative death rate per 100,000 people is less than the risk of side-effects from the vaccine. Still, unless your county's cumulative death rate is less than 12 per 100,000, as it is in Orange County, Vermont (population 29,000) or Skamania County, Washington (population 11,066), your risk of hospitalization from covid is higher than any risk from the vaccine.

Risk of covid deaths from breakthrough infections: We now know that vaccine-induced immunity fades over time, and that the delta variant in particular is causing a significant number of fully vaccinated people to fall ill. However, the vaccines are still highly protective against severe illness and death. Perhaps the most striking statistic is that out of 187,000,000 fully vaccinated Americans, 7,178 have died from covid, or just 3.8 per 100,000. That's less than 6 percent of the 124,000 Americans who have died from covid since mid-July, when the delta variant became predominant.

In summary, for the large majority of Americans, the risks of getting covid, suffering one or more of the serious impacts of covid, having to be hospitalized because of covid, or dying from covid are all far higher than the risks of any side-effect of the mRNA vaccines, and, even against the delta variant, the vaccines remain highly protective against severe illness or death.

What about children?

There is one group, however, for whom this may not be true. As many critics of covid vaccination have pointed out, the risks from covid are significantly lower for young people. For example, the cumulative covid death rate for children under 15 is less than 5 per 100,000, comparable to the death rate for fully vaccinated adults. For 16 and 17 year-olds it's 9 per 100,000, and from 18 through 29, 16 per 100,000. If we were just comparing the risk of dying from covid to the much less serious but documented risks from the mRNA vaccines, one could potentially come down on the side of not vaccinating young children and teenagers.

The picture changes if we include the risk of children needing to be hospitalized because of covid. The cumulative covid hospitalization rate for children 0 through 4 is 87 per 100,000, and from 5 through 18, 51.8 per 100,000. These are less than the risk of any side effects of the vaccines, but higher than the risks of serious side effects. Luckily, young children are less likely to be severely sickened or to die from covid than adults, but a significant number do need to be hospitalized.

Safety and efficacy trials of covid vaccines for children from 5 through 11 are currently taking place, and the White House has announced plans to promote vaccination of children ages 5 through 11 once a children's vaccine is approved. We should have more data specific to that age group within the next few months.

Individual risks vs. social responsibility

The risk ratios discussed above refer to individual risks. That is, one could decide to be vaccinated or not based only on comparing one's own risk of contracting covid, or of requiring hospitalization, or of dying vs. the known risks from the vaccine. However, public health authorities point out that, much like choosing to wear a mask, getting vaccinated doesn't just protect the person getting the jab, it also protects others by reducing the likelihood that that person will infect others. This multiplicative factor becomes significant when large numbers of people in a population remain unvaccinated, and so provide a continuing medium for the virus.

Currently, 43 percent of the US population remain unvaccinated, or more than 143 million people. Around half of those are adults who would incur low risks from vaccination yet could protect themselves and others by doing so. As long as they choose not to get vaccinated, they remain a big, wide playing field across which the coronavirus can continue its advance.

Best data yet on the actual risks of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine

Many people don't trust even repeated assurances from official sources that mRNA vaccines like the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid shots are safe. In fact it's not unusual for opinion leaders opposed to these vaccines, and their followers, to warn that the Covid vaccines are extremely dangerous and have already caused high levels of serious illness and thousands of deaths. Millions of Americans appear to be far more afraid of the vaccines than of the Covid virus itself, and continue to refuse vaccination.

                                                                 Anti-vaccine protester

Credit: Fibonnaci Blue/Flickr

A new, peer-reviewed study appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine injects solid data into this fraught debate. The study provides an accounting and analysis of adverse events that occurred among more than 800,000 people within 42 days of receiving the Pfizer vaccine in Israel between December 20, 2020 and May 24, 2021, compared to an equal number of carefully matched peers who remained un-vaccinated, and to 173,000 peers who were diagnosed with Covid during the same time period. All the data came directly from anonymized medical records.

It's the largest controlled, peer-reviewed study of the side-effects of the Pfizer vaccine to date--nearly 40 times larger than Pfizer's phase III study--and provides the most accurate and detailed evidence to date of its risks when administered to large numbers of people on a national basis.

Anyone interested in reading the full research paper, carried out by researchers at the Clalit Institute in Israel and Harvard Medical School, can find it here.

The study evaluated 25 potentially serious adverse effects that earlier studies and clinical experience since the vaccines were released had identified as possibly linked to the Pfizer or other Covid vaccines, or to Covid itself. It did not look at mild, short-lived symptoms that typically accompany many vaccinations, such as fever, tiredness, or soreness near the injection site. It also did not attempt to evaluate any potential long-term effects.

Results:

Of the 25 adverse effects studied, 5 appeared more frequently following vaccination than they did in the same time period in the group of matched, but un-vaccinated peers:

Myocarditis--inflammation of the heart muscle--was 3.24 times more frequent in the vaccinated vs. un-vaccinated groups. However, since the incidence was low overall, that meant just 2.7 extra events per 100,000 people. In this study 91 percent of cases occurred in young men.

Lymphadenopathy--swollen lymph nodes--were 2.43 times more frequent among vaccinated compared to un-vaccinated people, appearing in 78.4 more cases than expected per 100,000. Swollen lymph nodes can be a sign of a serious condition such as cancer, but usually are simply an indication that the body is mounting an immune response.

Herpes zoster--shingles--was 1.43 times more frequent in the vaccinated group, and accounted for 15.8 additional cases per 100,000 vaccinated individuals.

Appendicitis occurred 1.4 times more often in vaccinated than unvaccinated individuals, adding 5 cases for every 100,000 people.

Bell's palsy--dysfunction of a facial nerve--occurred 1.3 times as often among the vaccinated group, but was also rare, accounting for 3.5 extra cases per 100,000 vaccinated individuals.

An unexpected finding was that vaccination lowered the risk of some of the adverse effects being studied, compared to the un-vaccinated group. Those included acute kidney injury, intracranial bleeding, anemia, and lymphopenia--low levels of white blood cells. The researchers suspect that those benefits appeared because of un-diagnosed Covid cases among the 800,000 un-vaccinated participants, which raised the incidence of those conditions--known complications of Covid-- in the un-vaccinated group.

As is true of almost any medical intervention, this study shows that the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine is not risk-free. More importantly, the study gives us a clear measure of just what the vaccine's short- to medium-term risks are. Out of 25 potential side effects, 5 appeared at higher rates in the vaccinated vs. un-vaccinated groups. Of those, the most most serious was myocarditis, which added just 2.7 cases per 100,000, and the most frequent, which added 78 cases per 100,000, was not particularly serious--swollen lymph nodes.

In order to provide further context for those risks, the researchers looked at the same 25 potential adverse effects among 173,000 un-vaccinated study participants in the 42 days after they were diagnosed with Covid. The results reflect many of the all-too-well-known risks of Covid infection:

Cardiac arrythmia--3.8 times more frequent; 166 extra cases per 100,000

Acute kidney injury--14.8 times more frequent; 125.4 extra cases per 100,000

Pulmonary embolism--blood clot in the lungs--12.4 times more frequent; 61.7 extra cases per 100,000

Myocardial infarction--heart attack4.47 times more frequent; 25 extra cases per 100,000

Deep-vein thrombosis--3.78 times more frequent; 43 extra cases per 100,000

Myocarditis--18.3 times more frequent; 11 extra cases per 100,000

Pericarditis--5.39 times more frequent; 10.9 extra cases per 100,000

Intracranial bleeding--6.89 times more frequent; 7.6 extra cases per 100,000

Relative risks from Pfizer vaccination vs Covid infection

Credit: Noam Barda et al./NEJM

The vaccine is not risk free, but equally clearly, it does not cause anything like the degree or kinds of risk that anti-vaccination advocates and believers warn of. And the risks from the vaccine pale in comparison to the far higher risks from a Covid infection.

Here's what Dr. Ran Balicer, the study's lead author, concludes:

"These results show convincingly that this mRNA vaccine is very safe and that the alternative of 'natural' morbidity caused by the coronavirus puts a person at significant, higher and much more common risk of serious adverse events. These data should facilitate informed individual risk-benefit decision-making, and, in our view, make a strong argument in favor of opting-in to get vaccinated, especially in countries where the virus is currently widespread."

I'd add that the United States, which leads the world in Covid cases and deaths, qualifies as one of those countries.

If you want to compare your own risks from the vaccine with your risks from Covid, here's an approach:

If you're in the US and you're not vaccinated, as a rough approximation you have about a one percent chance--1000 out of 100,000 people--of getting Covid in any given six-week period. 

If you're vaccinated, your odds are somewhere between 10 and 20 times better, depending on where and with whom you live, work and recreate.

Six weeks is the same length of time used in the above study, so you can get an idea of your chance of developing any or all of the Covid complications that the study quantified.

To those conditions you can add yet another risk. Over the course of the pandemic in the US, 1.6 percent--1600 out of every 100,000 people--who were diagnosed with Covid died from it.

So, as a first approximation, your chance of coming down with Covid during a given six-week period--and dying from it--is about the same as your chance of getting a case of shingles within six weeks of a Covid vaccination.

From what I hear, shingles isn't fun, but dying is worse.

---

REA 9/8/21

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.

-----

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. 

THE DELTA VARIANT AND BEYOND--EXPERT COVID-19 UPDATE

I just sat in on a Covid-19 update presented by the Newswise science news service featuring three experts:

Perry Halkitis, a public health psychologist and applied statistician at New Jersey's Rutgers University,

Eleanor Wilson, a medical doctor and infections disease specialist at the University of Maryland, and

David Souleles, Director of UC Irvine's Covid-19 response team, recently retired .Orange County Public Health Director

Delta is for Dangerous . . .

Credit: The Spinoff/ISO FORM LLC

The focus of the update was the emergence and trajectory of the delta variant and what that implies for the US.

Here are some of the key points the three experts made:

--The delta variant is a serious threat in the US and worldwide.

--As recently reported, the level of viremia--the viral load in the bloodstream--from a delta-covid infection is 1,000 times higher than from previous versions of the virus. That's probably what is making it so infectious.

--According to Dr. Wilson, the infectiousness, or "R-nought" value, of the original version of Covid-19 was estimated to be between 1 and 3. Statistically that means that one infected person would pass the virus to one to three others. The beta version's R value was between 4 and 6. The delta variant is 8 or 9. The only virus known to be more easily transmitted is measles, with an R value of 13.

--Unfortunately, the current vaccines appear to offer less protection against delta than against earlier versions of the virus. However, even though they may not completely protect against catching the virus, they are still highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death. As such, vaccines remain our most important and urgent line of defense. "If we want to get back to normal life, we need our vaccination rates to be much higher," Souleles says. "That's priority number one to get our lives closer to what they were in January of 2020."

--That doesn't just include the US. The billions of people worldwide who are still not vaccinated are not just at risk personally, but represent a huge reservoir of current and future Covid-19 cases and so a huge opportunity for the virus to continue to mutate and spin off even more dangerous variants. "It's a global problem," says Wilson. "We have to vaccinate everyone. If we give the virus fewer opportunities to replicate, we win."

--All three of the experts were very concerned about the portion of the US population that are not yet vaccinated. They emphasize the importance of recognizing that this is not a monolithic group of dedicated vaccine refusers. Instead, these are individuals with many different issues, including very real medical, scheduling or other practical issues, normal anxieties and fears, such as a fear of needles, along with exposure to partial or incorrect information, and, unfortunately, a substantial number of people with politicized resistance to the vaccine and other protective measures. 

--They advocate both continued public education and persistent one-on-one outreach, aimed at recognizing and addressing each person's specific issues. "The media need to help people figure out what's real and what's not real, people who are being bombarded by misinformation," says Halkitis.  

"It takes a lot of conversation, but you have to keep doing it," says Wilson. To which Souleles adds, "Not just one conversation, maybe three, four or five."

--However, when education and patient one-to-one persuasion don't work, stronger steps may need to be taken. "I'd take a "tough-guy-from-New-York" approach," says Halkitis. "If you live in a civil society and you want to navigate spaces like concerts, restaurants, jobs and schools, you need to be vaccinated. Macron did it in France. If you want your children to go to school, they have to be vaccinated."

--All three agree that we need to track the course of the delta variant and any new variants that emerge with great attention, and that they could easily force a re-instatement of controls that have only recently been lifted. "Where we were six weeks ago is not where we are today," says Halkitis. "The next week will be very significant."

To summarize, the delta variant is highly contagious, surging rapidly, and is a potential game-changer. Everyone is eager to get back to something like the old normal, or on to a less restrictive new normal, but ultimately, it's the trajectory of the virus that will determine that. That trajectory is at least partly under our control through vaccination and other public health measures that we're all too familiar with. 

"We've got the tools," Souleles says. "We've just got to apply them on a broad scale."

---

REA 7/23/21

GET VACCINATED OR NOT? HERE ARE SOME ACTUAL STATISTICS.

 Just a quick note to any vaccine doubters who might still be amenable to facts:

Contra Costa County, in northern California, has begun publishing separate covid case statistics for vaccinated and un-vaccinated people.

The most recent 7-day average shows that among the 72 percent of adults who are vaccinated, the rate of new covid cases was 0.4 per 100,000--i.e. just one vaccinated person out of 250,000 got covid.

Credit: Manit Chaidee

In contrast, among the 28 percent of the county's population who are not vaccinated, the rate was 7.0 per 100,000. That's 17.5 times higher.

I don't know about you, but any time I can cut my risk of getting a potentially life-threatening disease by a factor of 17, I'm going for it.

---

REA

VOTING FOR COVID

If we needed any proof that people's political beliefs shape their reality, this graph from the New York Times provides it:

Credit: NYT, 4/18/21

On the left, appropriately, are the states in which more people voted for Biden in 2020, and on the right, states with more Trump voters. Vaccine hesitancy rates range from less than 10% in true-blue Vermont and Massachusetts to over 30% in true-to-Trump Wyoming. The Times didn't provide a regression line or a correlation coefficient, but having dealt with lots of graphs of this kind, I can say that it's the kind of distribution any researcher would be thrilled to see. 

We're now seeing real-world data showing that fully vaccinated Americans have about one chance in 10,000 of contracting COVID-19, while their un-vaccinated fellow citizens have close to one chance in 10 of catching the virus, and among those who do, close to two percent will die. If the political beliefs reflected in this chart continue to determine vaccination rates, we're going to see two Americas. One that's highly vaccinated, where there's low risk of catching COVID, and where people can return to their normal personal, social and economic activities.  In the other, poorly vaccinated America, people may also be returning to their normal activities, but they'll be doing so with a continued high risk of illness and death from COVID.

Will that contrast wake people up or change many minds.? I doubt it.  As evidence, check this story of death-by-denial, although it's from Norway, not North Dakota.