Wednesday, July 07, 2021

COVID-19 Is STILL a Threat, Florida

This may be 2021. There may be vaccines out there to help us reduce the risks of the coronavirus, but we're running into mutant strains of COVID (currently the Delta strain) alongside the problem of people refusing to get vaccinated. THAT is causing the infection counts to go back up. Follow the report from Ian Hodgson with the Tampa Bay Times for example: 

The highly contagious delta variant is spreading rapidly in Florida and is the dominant strain of the COVID-19 virus in the country, according to estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

CDC data released Tuesday shows that the delta variant accounted for 13.2 percent of new COVID-19 cases in Florida as of June 19. That’s up from 2.3 percent as of June 5.

“We shouldn’t be surprised at how quickly the delta variant is spreading here,” said Derek Cummins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida, “given what we saw elsewhere in the world where it took over...”

New infections and hospitalizations have increased in recent weeks as the delta variant spreads. Nearly 16,000 new coronavirus cases were detected in Florida last week, a 35 percent increase over the week before. Florida also saw 1,963 new hospitalizations from June 27 to July 4, an increase of 18 percent.

As more and more elderly residents are vaccinated, fatalities due to the coronavirus continue to fall, with 213 new deaths recorded in Florida in the past week, down from 280 per week early last month...

The elderly in Florida may be close to full vaccination rates, but what about the rest of the state's population? Teens, college-age adults, even those in their 30s and 40s aren't close to getting covered. 

Cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the state are still below levels seen as recently as April, but are a worrying sign as vaccination rates stagnate across the state. Fifty-three percent of eligible Florida residents have been fully vaccinated, and 62 percent have received at least one shot.

The delta variant may be as much as 50 percent more infectious, according to a Public Health England report published last month. This means the virus will spread faster, especially among unvaccinated individuals...

It's been pretty much six full months of an aggressive vaccination campaign, and we're barely past 53 percent full protection.

While the death rate may be down the infection rates aren't. The good news, those fully vaccinated tend to suffer the least from the COVID symptoms. Bad news: Nearly every COVID-related death in the nation comes from the unvaccinated. From Carla K Johnson and Mike Stobbe at the AP Newswire:

Nearly all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. now are in people who weren’t vaccinated, a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been and an indication that deaths per day — now down to under 300 — could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.

An Associated Press analysis of available government data from May shows that “breakthrough” infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than 1,200 of more than 107,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations. That’s about 1.1%.

And only about 150 of the more than 18,000 COVID-19 deaths in May were in fully vaccinated people. That translates to about 0.8%, or five deaths per day on average...

In Arkansas, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, with only about 33% of the population fully protected, cases, hospitalizations and deaths are rising.

“It is sad to see someone go to the hospital or die when it can be prevented,” Gov. Asa Hutchinson tweeted as he urged people to get their shots.

In Seattle’s King County, the public health department found only three deaths during a recent 60-day period in people who were fully vaccinated. The rest, some 95% of 62 deaths, had had no vaccine or just one shot...

In the St. Louis area, more than 90% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 have not been vaccinated, said Dr. Alex Garza, a hospital administrator who directs a metropolitan-area task force on the outbreak.

“The majority of them express some regret for not being vaccinated,” Garza said. “That’s a pretty common refrain that we’re hearing from patients with COVID...”


WE ARE NOT OUT OF THE GODDAMNED WOODS WITH THIS PANDEMIC, AMERICA. The sad sick thing is that our nation's population both seem unwilling to go back into quarantine - the drawn-out isolation for much of 2020 drove us mad apparently - and unwilling to fully embrace a vaccine program that is proving to work well helping people survive. 

We've gotten to the point where Biden's yelling and begging to the American people to get covered is falling on deaf ears. Even the Republican governors like Hutchinson in Arkansas are trying to get their own - and it is mostly the Republican base refusing to get their shots - and they're failing.

Do we as a whole nation even have the willpower anymore, are we burned out from fatigue? Are we all resigned to letting this pandemic get the better of us?

Gods help us if we have.

2 comments:

Infidel753 said...

Are we all resigned to letting this pandemic get the better of us?

"We all" are not. But what can we, the 60% or so who are rational on this issue, do about those who doggedly refuse vaccination because of imaginary microchips or "it's just the flu" or whatever? We've gotten the vaccine and spent a year-plus using masks and otherwise being careful. There's not much we can do to modify the behavior of the delusionals. At a certain point you just have to look to your own safety, acknowledge that some people are never going to do anything to protect themselves, and think of it as natural selection in action.

dinthebeast said...

There's always dart guns loaded with the one dose J&J vaccine...

-Doug in Sugar Pine