Your Cheatin Heart - part the ninth

June 15, 2021 


                           New York Times 

                        by A. Corres Pondent 


     RED STATES WITH SPARSE VACCINATIONS EXPLODE WITH COVID 

To the surprise of No One, the Red States, which have been lax in getting their populations vaccinated, are experiencing a resurgence in Covid. The curve started back up on May 14, the day after the CDC and President Biden announced that the fully vaccinated are free to go about their lives without a mask in all venues, not just outdoors.

To the surprise of No One, all those Red State Yahoos immediately dis-masked, even though the majority eligible for vaccines have refused to be vaccinated. If the rest of the country is fortunate, the Yahoos will infect themselves to death.

[update 14 May]
Here's the vaccination record for the states. The bottom of the barrel

At the other end, the five states with the lowest percentage of people with one dose are Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Wyoming and Idaho.

So, one dose isn't the best measure, but still. Here's the benchmark as of 14 May behind the June 15 lede from the NYT.

Since the point is daily trend, updated to use reported daily cases. Per 100K is only reported, in this source, as 7-day.

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi    201     8 

Louisiana      421    10 
 
Alabama        285     6  cases data on the 14th is way whacky, so stick with 7-day average
 
Wyoming         83    12 
 
Idaho          167     9 

We'll stop by the data every now and again to see whether the Oracle turns out to be correct. One actually hopes not, since Covid doesn't respect state lines.

[update 21 May]

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi    105     5 

Louisiana      340     9 
 
Alabama        443     6 
 
Wyoming         70    14 
 
Idaho          167     9 

[update 28 May]

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi    131     5 

Louisiana      354     9 
 
Alabama        228     5 
 
Wyoming         96    12 
 
Idaho          135     8 

[update 4 June]

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi    141     4 

Louisiana      364     7 
 
Alabama        557     6 
 
Wyoming         80    12 
 
Idaho          166     6 

[update 11 June]

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi    236     4 

Louisiana      228     7 
 
Alabama        188     5 
 
Wyoming        103    12 
 
Idaho          118     6 

[update 15 June]

             cases    per 100K
Mississippi     47     4 

Louisiana      559     8 
 
Alabama        290     5 
 
Wyoming         68    11 
 
Idaho           89     5 

[14 June]
Here's Dr. Peter Hotez on the Southern Problem. It's not going away.

If new variants arising from the southern states are allowed to emerge over the summer, these could accelerate across the rest of the country into the fall. For example, the P.1 variant (and possibly the E484K mutation superimposed on B.1.1.7) appears to be slightly less susceptible to the current vaccines compared to, say, the original lineages, or the B.1.1.7 variant on its own. Regarding the Delta variant, two doses of the mRNA vaccine still appear to work well, whereas a single vaccine dose appears to exhibit reduced efficacy.

Sound familiar? The forest fire analogy is apt: suppress it fast when it's small, or there's the Devil to pay later.

All in all, yet another mixed bag. Louisiana and Alabama are deer in the headlights mode. Mississippi is all over the place, the 14th was 266 while the 11th was 0. A. Corres Pondent is sorta, kinda half right as of the 15th. Likely the article would be spiked. Given the concern offered up by the 'experts' with regard to variant propagation among the poorly vaccinated states, and these five were the bottom of the barrel at the outset of this sequence, I'll give the review two more full week iterations and thence re-visit the data if the situation goes into the abyss.