COVID infection rates are way down. But are weak and/or venal politicians-- pressured to throw caution to the wind-- moving too fast to lift restrictions? Worldwide, the 10 countries with the most reported new cases yesterday:
Brazil- 85,861 (down from Tuesday)
India- 67,294 (up from Tuesday)
Colombia- 27,827 (steady)
Argentina- 25,878 (down from Tuesday)
USA- 14,063 (up from Tuesday)
Russia- 13,397 (down from Tuesday)
South Africa- 13,246 (up from Tuesday)
Iran- 10,487 (steady)
Indonesia- 9,944 (up from Tuesday)
UK- 9,055 (up from Tuesday)
The three American states with new cases still spiking dangerously are 3 states with governments most opposed to following medical guidelines and most eager to have cast all restrictions aside:
Florida- 1,719
Texas- 1,194
Missouri- 857
Yesterday, Michelle Smith, reporting for the Associated Press, wrote that "As cases tumble and states reopen, the potential final stage in the U.S. campaign to vanquish COVID-19 is turning into a slog, with a worrisome variant gaining a bigger foothold and lotteries and other prizes failing to persuade some Americans to get vaccinated. 'The last half, the last mile, the last quarter-mile always requires more effort,' Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. While two of the states slammed hardest by the disaster, California and New York, celebrated their reopenings this week with fireworks and a multimillion-dollar drawing, hospitalizations in parts of Missouri are surging and cases are rising sharply in Texas, illustrating the challenges the country faces this summer." The more contagious new Delta variant is spreading in communities where imbeciles are still refusing the be vaccinated.
The government is trying to figure out how to persuade people refusing to be vaccinated to do so. I know it sounds cruel and heartless, but wouldn't the gene pool be better off if they all die though? I mean, it's their choice and at this point the only people who aren't getting vaccinated are people with very low and very dysfunctional IQs who, for the sake of the country's future, shouldn't be reproducing anyway. Believe me, I know how awful that sounds, but these are the people who brought us Trump and have brought the country to the brink of civil war. The vaccine is freely available to everyone. If they chose to listen to far right conspiracy theorists and not take it... each one is just one less vote for fascism.
In Texas, the rolling average of newly confirmed infections has climbed from about 1,000 per day on May 31 to nearly 2,000 this week.
A swath of Missouri is seeing a big rise in cases and hospitalizations as tourists eager to get out after being cooped up for a year make their way to popular destinations like Branson and Lake of the Ozarks. Health officials said more than 200 people were hospitalized with the virus in southwestern Missouri, nearly double the number at the start of May. The number of patients in intensive care units in the region has tripled.
Health experts cite two factors driving the surge there: the faster-spreading delta variant and a reluctance among residents to get vaccinated.
The U.S. is expected to fall short of President Joe Biden’s goal of dispensing at least one dose to 70% of American adults by July 4. The figure stands at about 65%.
Among the states that don’t expect to hit the goal are Kansas and Idaho. In Idaho, some counties have adult vaccination rates under 30%, said Elke Shaw-Tulloch, public health administrator for the state Department of Health and Welfare.
Today Becker's Hospital Review reported that 44.1% of Americans are fully vaccinated. This is a list of the dozen most vaccinated states, (along with what percentage of voters thought Trump was the best option in 2020):
Vermont- 62.94% (Trump- 30.67%)
Maine- 58.76 (Trump- 44.02%)
Massachusetts- 58.3% (Trump- 32.14%)
Connecticut- 57.9% (Trump- 39.19%)
Rhode Island- 55.75% (Trump- 38.61%)
New Hampshire- 54.12% (Trump- 45.36%)
New Jersey- 53.34% (Trump- 41.40%)
Maryland- 52.95 (Trump- 32.15%)
Washington- 51.08 (Trump- 38.77%)
New York- 51.04 (Trump- 37.75%)
New Mexico- 51.03% (Trump- 43.50%)
Oregon- 50.4% (Trump- 40.37%)
And, this is a list of the dozen states with the lowest vaccination rates (along with their 2020 Trump votes)-- listed from bad to worst:
South Carolina- 36.28% (Trump- 55.11%)
Oklahoma- 36.15% (Trump- 65.37%)
West Virginia- 35.85% (Trump- 68.62%)
Utah- 35.39% (Trump- 58.13%)
Idaho- 34.61% (Trump- 63.84%)
Tennessee- 33.92% (Trump- 60.66%)
Georgia- 33.88% (Trump- 49.24%)
Louisiana- 33.26% (Trump- 58.46%)
Wyoming- 33.24% (Trump- 69.94%)
Arkansas- 32.81% (Trump- 62.40%)
Alabama- 30.77% (Trump- 62.03)
Mississippi- 28.5% (Trump- 57.60%)
Obviously, even the worst Trumpist hellholes have good people living in them. Take Texas. Just over half the voters living there were stupid enough to cast their ballots for Trump (52.06). Millions or Texans didn't-- including the 5.2 million who voted for Biden. As of yesterday, Texas' vaccination rate was 38.72%-- putting the state in great jeopardy from a Delta wave. Before you start cheering, remember this though: there were wide variations between counties in the election. If the fine folks in Roberts County-- which voted 96.18% for Trump and 20.23% are fully vaccinated-- and Borden County-- 95.43% Trump and 25.5% are fully vaccinated), King County-- 94.97% Trump and 14.47 are fully vaccinated-- and Glasscock County-- 93.57% Trump and 29.86% fully vaccinated--refuse to get vaccinated... isn't that survival of the fittest? As long as they can't spread the disease to people in counties where normal people live:
Travis County- 26.51% Trump (51.87% fully vaccinated/61.57% partially)
El Paso County- 31.62% Trump (49.72 fully vaccinated/60.15 partially)
Presidio County- 32.52% Trump (61.48% fully vaccinated/75.29% partially)
Dallas County- 33.40% Trump (39.17% fully vaccinated/47.18% partially)
Zavala County- 34.03% Trump (32.92% fully vaccinated/39.52% partially)
This morning, Marisa Fernandez and Tina Reed, reporting for Axios, wrote that "Soon, more than half the states will have ended their formal emergency declarations for the pandemic... If variants or other factors begin to overwhelm communities and hospitals with cases in the fall, reinstating emergency orders and restrictions could erode public trust in politicians and public health capabilities, Georges Benjamin, a medical doctor and executive director of the American Public Health Association, tells Axios. 'At all levels of government and even in the private sector, we need to be thinking thoughtfully of how to make this transition and not just do it,' he said. 'We transition in an organized manner back to the society that we had two years ago than simply deciding we’re going to end these rules.'"
I think that train has already left the station, especially in the Trumpist states where people are most resistant to vaccination and most likely to spark another deadly wave of infections.