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Post by longsuffering on Jun 15, 2021 14:07:28 GMT -5
U! S! A! Three cheers for the red white and blue.
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Post by hcpride on Jun 15, 2021 14:11:20 GMT -5
All good points Tom, and certainly not wrong of you to mention. I suppose the respective good versus bad was weighed, as people were dying by the thousands (just over 600,000 today, or the equivalent of about two hundred 9/11s) the risk/reward skewed towards vaccination. The general technology and science stood on the accomplishments of prior, similar work, and there were some trials conducted to make sure that it didn't immediately harm all recipients. We still take our shoes off at the airport and get full body scans for something that was 200 times less dangerous, relatively speaking... I guess there are some folks who know they are not at serous risk of dying from Covid and see the risk/reward in a certain perspective and, of course, there are tens of millions who already had Covid, recovered, and have natural immunity who also don't see much in the personal risk/reward side of things. I don't see those two groups as any sort of a surprise. Beyond that, PP posted an interesting chart earlier showing the ethnic/racial background of those who got the vaccination (with July 4 projection) and clearly additional outreach in the black community is warranted.
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Post by sader1970 on Jun 15, 2021 14:22:01 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 15, 2021 14:24:30 GMT -5
Given the demographics of their two Congressional Districts, Congresswomen AOC and MTG (Marjorie Taylor Greene) both must represent below average vaccinated constituents.
I would love to see a competition between the two to see whichever district can get more people vaccinated by July 4th, with figures from the right and left like the former and current Presidents hitting the streets with the Congresswomen to try to win the contest. Get to work to make America the world leader in beating Covid instead of sniping at the other side. The former President should definitely be taking credit for the vaccine and pumping up his people to win the contest, even though there would be no real losers.
But that is less lucrative than fundraising to smash the other side.
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Post by Chu Chu on Jun 15, 2021 15:01:00 GMT -5
University Vaccine Mandates Violate Medical Ethics (Wall Street Journal; June 14, 2021)
College students aren’t guinea pigs.
Some 450 U.S. colleges and universities—including our institutions—have announced policies mandating that all students be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 before the fall semester, with some requiring vaccination now for the summer term. Schools have for decades required vaccination against infectious diseases, but these mandates are unprecedented—and unethical. Never before have colleges insisted that students or employees receive an experimental vaccine as a condition of attendance or employment.
Even soldiers, whose rights are constrained when they join the service, aren’t being compelled to take a Covid vaccine. In a case involving a vaccine against anthrax, a federal district judge held in 2004 that “the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces also serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs” absent informed consent or a presidential waiver of service members’ legal protections. The following year the judge held that an emergency-use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration was insufficient to meet the legal test.
The FDA has issued such authorizations for three Covid vaccines, but it hasn’t fully approved any of them. Students at Notre Dame (for example) resume classes on Aug. 23, and freshmen arrive on campus Aug. 18. The Pfizer vaccine—first in line for approval—requires three weeks before the booster shot, so it would have to be approved by July 28 for students to meet the school’s deadline without making themselves experimental subjects. Pfizer applied to the FDA May 7 for “priority review,” a process that usually takes six months.
Universities might counter that—as with elementary schools requiring pediatric vaccinations—immunization is for students’ own good. But children can be at significant medical risks from the illnesses that we vaccinate them against, particularly when community vaccination rates are low. Not so with Covid. For those under 30, the risks of serious morbidity and mortality are close to zero. By contrast, early indications from passive surveillance systems (which call for follow-up investigation) and a June 10 review by the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee indicated an excess risk for heart inflammation, especially in men 30 and younger.
Colleges’ vaccine mandates also ignore the huge number of students—thousands of them at Notre Dame—who have already recovered from Covid infection, and who thus possess natural immunity, which studies have suggested is more robust and durable than vaccine immunity. While vaccinating Covid-recovered patients might produce an antibody uptick, there is no epidemiological evidence that this improves relevant clinical outcomes like reinfection or transmissibility. Previous infection can easily be verified with the university’s own records of testing throughout the past school year, a positive viral test from another provider or an antibody test, which would prove either natural immunity or vaccination.
Forced vaccinations would also commandeer populations that were deliberately excluded from clinical trials, thus subjecting them to novel experimental risks. This includes not only patients who’ve recovered from Covid, but pregnant and breast-feeding women as well.
These coercive mandates violate basic principles of medical ethics. Even if the vaccines receive full FDA approval, no sensible understanding of herd immunity can justify forcing vaccinations on healthy young adults who are at minimal risk of hospitalization or death from Covid, especially those who already had Covid. We don’t immunize children against diseases that primarily harm the elderly in hope of reducing transmission risks for the elderly. That would use the recipients as a means to another end, which is unethical.
Consider the analogy of nontherapeutic research, from which the research subject doesn’t stand to benefit directly. The central canon of medical ethics in this situation is the free and informed consent of the research subject, as articulated in the Nuremberg Code and the Helsinki Declaration. Informed consent is likewise required for medical decisions in all adults of sound mind. This is arguably the most deeply rooted doctrine in contemporary medical ethics.
A person may freely choose to accept medical risks for the benefit of others, as when one donates a kidney for transplant. But there is no moral duty to do so. This is why we don’t harvest organs without consent, even if doing so would save many lives. Those who make such sacrifices for others must truly be volunteers, not conscripts drafted by college administrators.
University leaders might claim that vaccine mandates are necessary to make faculty, staff and students “feel safe” enough to reopen. That’s specious. Requiring the naturally immune to be vaccinated doesn’t make anyone actually safer. It is wrong to risk harming healthy people so that college can peddle a psychological placebo to those who don’t care enough to consider basic scientific facts.
We must maintain our integrity under pressure. It is precisely in dire situations, such as wars or pandemics, that we are most sorely tempted to abandon ethical principles. Authorities rushing to implement mandatory vaccination protocols are ignoring available scientific data, basic principles of immunology and elementary norms. Even if some sincerely think that these regimes are needed to open safely, that belief neither makes it so nor justifies coercive policies that steamroll fundamental liberties.
Dr. Kheriaty is a professor of psychiatry and director of the Medical Ethics Program at the University of California, Irvine. Mr. Bradley is a law professor at Notre Dame.
#DefendingtheIndefensible There are sometimes conflicts between good and valuable things which force us to choose the "greater good". The choice in this case is between an individuals personal freedom and responsibility vs sickness and death for large numbers of our fellow citizens that can be prevented via immunization. Responsible leadership in government, business, education, sports and many other domains has responded to this moment by asking everyone to get vaccinated unless there is a substantial reason why that should not be done. I view the action by colleges that are requiring immunization to be responsible and necessary, and I am thankful that students will have the opportunity to be safe on campus and enjoy a more normal, in person educational experience. This vaccine is not experimental. The experiments were done in order to gain approval. The emergency approval refers to the speed at which the COVID-19 vaccines were developed and approved, faster than the usual process, however, nothing was skipped to ascertain its safety. The time savings came from running some things simultaneously and manufacturing doses before approval, while hoping for the best results so that the vaccine could be used. Kudos to our former President for that. These are not "forced vaccinations". They are only being required for those who choose to attend the college in question. If they feel strongly enough, they can say no and wait or go elsewhere. On balance, I applaud the decision to require immunizations in these situations to combat this dreadful illness. It is the greater good. All of us must consider that we have a responsibility to others in this situation, and getting the vaccine is easy enough compared to the good it can do!
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Post by alum on Jun 15, 2021 15:21:10 GMT -5
Given the demographics of their two Congressional Districts, Congresswomen AOC and MTG (Marjorie Taylor Greene) both must represent below average vaccinated constituents. I would love to see a competition between the two to see whichever district can get more people vaccinated by July 4th, with figures from the right and left like the former and current Presidents hitting the streets with the Congresswomen to try to win the contest. Get to work to make America the world leader in beating Covid instead of sniping at the other side. The former President should definitely be taking credit for the vaccine and pumping up his people to win the contest, even though there would be no real losers. But that is less lucrative than fundraising to smash the other side. Happily, we have data on this with which we can start the contest. Our friends in Crimson are doing the work.
As of now, AOC's district has 54.12% with one dose and 46.37% fully vaccinated. They are just over the national average.
MTG's district is at 28.27 and 24.22%
Hopefully, MTG's constituents pick up the pace. Maybe AOC could get Lin Manuel Miranda to send them tickets to his new movie as an incentive.
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Post by newfieguy74 on Jun 15, 2021 15:37:47 GMT -5
It doesn't look like much of a contest with AOC's district already vaccinated at almost twice the rate of MTG's. MTG equating mask mandates with the Holocaust and her stunning lack of enthusiasm for science (e.g she doesn't believe in evolution) are factors likely to tamp down vaccinations in her district.
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Post by KY Crusader 75 on Jun 15, 2021 15:55:57 GMT -5
Wow, I was not aware that a junior member of congress had that much influence on her constituents.
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Post by hcpride on Jun 15, 2021 16:18:39 GMT -5
Given the demographics of their two Congressional Districts, Congresswomen AOC and MTG (Marjorie Taylor Greene) both must represent below average vaccinated constituents. I would love to see a competition between the two to see whichever district can get more people vaccinated by July 4th, with figures from the right and left like the former and current Presidents hitting the streets with the Congresswomen to try to win the contest. Get to work to make America the world leader in beating Covid instead of sniping at the other side. The former President should definitely be taking credit for the vaccine and pumping up his people to win the contest, even though there would be no real losers. But that is less lucrative than fundraising to smash the other side. I don't think either district has a large black population (in fact, AOC's district has about double the number of Asians than blacks). That is the racial group facing the most challenges regarding Covid vaccinations (The snazzy chart PP presented predicts 51% of blacks will be vaccinated by July 4 v 70%+ for Asians, 68% for whites and 63% for Hispanics).
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 15, 2021 16:45:12 GMT -5
My bad. I shot from the hip and assumed AOC represented an inner city district that was similar to rural Republicans in vaccination rate...but the district is high in Asians who are above average.
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Post by Chu Chu on Jun 15, 2021 16:58:41 GMT -5
My bad. I shot from the hip and assumed AOC represented an inner city district that was similar to rural Republicans in vaccination rate...but the district is high in Asians who are above average. Don't discount the fact that leadership in that district is doing all they can to encourage vaccination, while in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, the virulent opposite is true.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 15, 2021 17:36:36 GMT -5
Massachusetts crossed a benchmark today, with 4,003,000 residents fully vaccinated. an additional 500,000 or so have received one dose of Moderna/Pfizer.
According to the NY Times vaccine tracker, 81% of MA residents ages 18 and over have received at least one dose. MA joins VT at 84%, and HI at 82% in the 80 and over club. 70 percent of MA residents ages 18 and over are fully vaccinated. VT, at 73%, is the only other state to reach the 70 percent fully vaccinated threshold.
The number of new MA cases, past seven days, is the lowest since March 16, 2020. The number of cases in March 2020 is very likely greatly understated because of the very low volume of testing, In early March 2020, positive test rates of 30+ percent were being recorded. The current positive test rate is 0.42 percent.
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 15, 2021 17:36:56 GMT -5
My bad. I shot from the hip and assumed AOC represented an inner city district that was similar to rural Republicans in vaccination rate...but the district is high in Asians who are above average. Don't discount the fact that leadership in that district is doing all they can to encourage vaccination, while in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district, the virulent opposite is true. Yes, I imagine the Pastors in the Pulpits have a very different emphasis in each area. Also, New Yorkers saw the carnage first hand at it's height with the refrigerated Morgue Trucks and all.
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Post by newfieguy74 on Jun 15, 2021 17:39:03 GMT -5
I was in NH for the past few days and I thought I saw a statistic that only 51% of eligible NH residents have received one dose. If true, this would be a jarring contrast with its neighbors.
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 15, 2021 17:42:49 GMT -5
I was in NH for the past few days and I thought I saw a statistic that only 51% of eligible NH residents have received one dose. If true, this would be a jarring contrast with its neighbors. Vermonter's looking across the Connecticut River at New Hampshire: "Live free AND die."
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Post by lou on Jun 15, 2021 19:00:16 GMT -5
I was in NH for the past few days and I thought I saw a statistic that only 51% of eligible NH residents have received one dose. If true, this would be a jarring contrast with its neighbors. NYT today, at least 1 shot: VT 73%, NH 61%
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Post by newfieguy74 on Jun 15, 2021 19:35:31 GMT -5
VT is definitely over 80%. The governor was on television to congratulate VT citizens and lift all restrictions.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 16, 2021 8:12:48 GMT -5
According to the NY Times, as of yesterday, 72 percent of NH residents 18 and over had received at least one shot, and 64 percent were fully vaccinated. Using the all ages metric, 61 percent of all NH residents have received at least one dose.
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 17, 2021 18:51:25 GMT -5
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 17, 2021 19:46:35 GMT -5
This anti-viral is a great avenue to fight Covid that doesn't risk injection with Bill Gates' secret sauce for those so concerned and others for whom the vaccine is not medically advised. Thanks Dr. Fauci.
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 17, 2021 20:03:30 GMT -5
My Regimen consists of appropriate levels of the following: Vitamin C Vitamin D Zinc Quercetin Ivermectin if/when need be Brisk walks, high protein diet, I had a stress test today and have been taking brisk walks to "train" for it. I got my heart rate up to 129 without incident so I passed. I took another brisk walk when I got home because I don't want to get out of the habit.
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Post by hcpride on Jun 18, 2021 5:17:26 GMT -5
Nice summation yesterday on the current debate regarding the origin of the pandemic and a dissection of the reluctance of some scientists to voice public support for the lab leak theory (TDS, if the article is to be believed - one suspects there was more to it than that). One scientist makes a VERY obvious point in the article: “If we had a pandemic that was sourced near to a BSL-4 lab in the U.S., the first thing you would be asking is if they were working with that pathogen in that lab," said an expert on evolutionary genetics of infectious diseases, Andrew Read, a professor of biology at Penn State. www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/lab-leak-theory-science-scientists-rcna1191Finding the source is very significant for those who would like to prevent another (and possibly worse) lab leak and hold China accountable (if, in fact, the bat coronavirus virus leaked from the Wuhan lab collection of bat coronaviruses).
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Post by Pakachoag Phreek on Jun 18, 2021 6:32:45 GMT -5
Demographics of vaccination in Massachusetts: a crude snapshot.
Vaccination status by age for two communities. % vaccinated as of June 17 Worcester / Swampscott 12-15 33% / 74% 16-19 40% / 84% 20-29 47% / 87% 30-49 67% / 94% 50-64 83% / >95% 65-74 >95% / >95% 75+ 92% / 86% Total Population 56% / 79%
Vaccination status by race for three communities Worcester /Swampscott / Salem Asian 62% / 60% / 51% Black 39% / 90% / 33% Hispanic 39% / >95% /32% White 60% / 72% / 68% (Total population of Salem that is vaccinated 62%)
Swampscott is the home of Gov. Baker. Wealthy, highly educated, more than 90 percent White.
Salem is a city adjacent to Swampscott, predominately White but more racially and economically diverse than Swampscott.
The disparities by race in these three communities hint that vaccine acceptance (compared to vaccine hesitancy) is primarily driven by education, relative wealth, and peer 'pressure' (or lack thereof) within a demographic culture within the community.
The comparatively low percentage of those ages 75+ vaccinated in Swampscott may reflect a significant percentage of that cohort being homebound and immobile.
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Post by efg72 on Jun 18, 2021 11:18:28 GMT -5
Question for those following variants and the CUREVAC failure
Why did Curevac’s vaccine fail? It is very similar to the Moderna/Pfizer mRNA- as I understand it gives a big-spike antibody response. If CureVacs anti-Spike mRNA vaccine doesn’t work – then why does Pfizer/Moderna work?
Here is what I heard about it, albeit might be speculation.
Partially due to they had a lot of virus variants in their phase 3 trial.
Only 1 out of 137 confirmed COVID cases were of the original Wuhan strain and a fair amount of the little studied Peru lambda variant.
We will know more in a couple of weeks when we see the response by variant. But even when that is backed out, efficacy looks less good so another factor seems to be there as well.
THe Curevacs vaccine is not identical to the other mRNA vaccines so maybe the stabilization they have done ( needs only normal refrigeration) is doing something.
Anyway, I will let you know what else I hear as we start planning for any other waves or the next pandemic with a different virus.
See the article below- I took one chart out just because of formatting
Vantage Logo
June 17, 2021
Curevac’s credibility unravels along with its Covid-19 vaccine
· Jacob Plieth
Long-awaited results from the Herald study are a bust, and the data will likely deteriorate further.
Covid-19 vaccine vial and needle against Curevac logo in background
There is no getting away from the harsh reality of Curevac’s long-awaited phase 2/3 readout yesterday: CVnCoV, its latecomer Covid-19 vaccine, is not competitive. An interesting question, however, is why these second interim analysis data were disclosed at all, and goes to the heart of Curevac’s fast-shrinking credibility.
Indeed, as recently as one week ago the company was insisting to the sellside that the second interim analysis had not taken place. This is by no means the only questionable aspect of CVnCoV’s development; perhaps given the confusion, and how clearly the vaccine was underperforming, Curevac had no option but to reveal all.
The data announced yesterday concern CVnCoV’s Herald study, carried out mostly in South America and at some European sites. Its readout had been keenly awaited, given CVnCoV’s status as potentially the third mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine, and lack of news had spurred speculation that stopping criteria were being missed for lack of efficacy.
Interim analyses
Finally Curevac revealed on May 28 – after market close on the Friday before a US holiday – that a first interim analysis had come and gone without meeting efficacy criteria.
Yesterday brought news of the second interim analysis, which yielded 47% vaccine efficacy among a total 134 adjudicated Covid-19 cases. This is clearly disappointing, underperforming the likes of Moderna and Pfizer/Biontech’s 95% figures, and the EMA’s loose approval threshold of 50%; Curevac crashed 48% in early trade today.
The data raise several questions. The Herald study’s updated statistical analysis plan specified efficacy of around 44% as the threshold below which futility would be declared at second interim; actual efficacy has beaten this, albeit marginally, but clearly the 60% threshold for success has not been breached either.
So why even announce these data? Standard practice would be to say stopping criteria had not been reached, and proceed to final analysis.
There are two possibilities: either Curevac has effectively given up on Herald, or it felt that it had to reveal the data given its earlier pronouncements. These had included a robust denial of a report in Augsburger Allgemeine, a newspaper that had claimed that the second interim analysis had, like the first, come and gone.
But on June 9 Evercore ISI analysts had reported Curevac as “categorically denying” the newspaper’s claim, writing: “second interim ... has not been done”. Yesterday’s announcement shows that the Augsburger Allgemeine was on the right track.
This piles more questions on a project that had been mired in controversy right from the start, when a political storm over an alleged exclusive US deal ended with the abrupt departure of Curevac’s chief executive (Crisis, what crisis? Curevac denies everything, March 17, 2020).
And things get worse still. Curevac has said that Herald’s second interim analysis ended up looking at 134 Covid-19 cases – which, remarkably, is under a third of the total cases there have been so far in the study; 474 further possible cases have been noted, but these are still subject to adjudication.
Curevac’s defence centres on the growing prevalence of Covid-19 variants of concern, which clearly affected Herald to a greater extent than competitors’ early Covid-19 trials. On a call today management said the Covid-19 landscape had “changed dramatically”, meaning that it was now “virtually fighting a different virus”.
This reflects the way any infectious disease adapts, and highlights the difficulty of being a relative latecomer like Curevac. But many other groups continue reporting reasonable efficacy against some emerging variants, especially as regards hospitalisations, a subject on which Curevac has so far been silent.
Then there is the problem of Peru. Though Curevac carefully avoided splitting out details, Evercore estimates that CVnCoV’s efficacy against the C.37 Peru variant could be only 20%. This is crucial, as this variant accounts for most of the 474 currently unadjudicated cases; thus Curevac’s dataset is likely to get worse as adjudication of Peru cases swings the dataset further towards failure.
For now Curevac is saying Herald will proceed to final analysis. It is not clear whether a Europe filing will take place, but the company stressed its move to second-generation Covid-19 vaccines, which it claims cause higher protein expression and have improved kinetics.
This work is the result of a deal with Glaxosmithkline. The UK big pharma group has notably missed the boat in Covid-19, and Curevac’s data are a further example of it having hitched its wagon to the wrong horse.
SELECTED LARGE TRIALS OF SIX MAJOR COVID-19 VACCINES
Company
Vaccine
Study
Headline efficacy
Variant detail
Biontech/ Pfizer
Comirnaty
C4591001 (mostly US)
95%
~88% efficacy vs India variant
Moderna
mRNA-1273
P301 (US)
95%
~88% efficacy vs India variant
Johnson & Johnson
JNJ-78436735
Ensemble (mostly US; single dose)
67%
66% efficacy vs Brazil variant, 52% vs S Africa variant
Astrazeneca
AZD1222
NCT04516746 (mostly US)
76% (62 vs 128 for control)* ^
60% efficacy vs India variant; S Africa variant caused efficacy to fall to 10% for mild disease
Novavax
NVX-CoV2373
Prevent-19 (mostly US)
90%
50% effective vs S Africa variant; 93% against variants of concern/interest
Curevac
CVnCoV
Herald (75% S America, 25% Europe)
47% (46 vs 88 for control)* ^^
Efficacy not split out, but cases mostly Kent & C.37 Peru variants; 370 Latin America cases yet to be adjudicated, incl ~160 in Peru (~100 C.37 variant) and ~100 in Argentina (~25 C.37 variant)
Source: company announcements, FDA documents & scientific publications. Note: *absolute numbers estimated; ^2:1 randomisation, and a further 14 cases yet to be adjudicated at 25 Mar 2021; ^^a further 474 cases yet to be adjudicated at 17 Jun 2021; Curevac competitors have also cited continuing protection vs severe Covid-19 and hospitalisations due to novel variants, though there is no data on the C.37 Peru variant
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Post by longsuffering on Jun 18, 2021 13:37:15 GMT -5
Demographics of vaccination in Massachusetts: a crude snapshot. Vaccination status by age for two communities. % vaccinated as of June 17 Worcester / Swampscott12-15 33% / 74% 16-19 40% / 84% 20-29 47% / 87% 30-49 67% / 94% 50-64 83% / >95% 65-74 >95% / >95% 75+ 92% / 86% Total Population 56% / 79% Vaccination status by race for three communities Worcester /Swampscott / SalemAsian 62% / 60% / 51% Black 39% / 90% / 33% Hispanic 39% / >95% /32% White 60% / 72% / 68% (Total population of Salem that is vaccinated 62%) Swampscott is the home of Gov. Baker. Wealthy, highly educated, more than 90 percent White. Salem is a city adjacent to Swampscott, predominately White but more racially and economically diverse than Swampscott. The disparities by race in these three communities hint that vaccine acceptance (compared to vaccine hesitancy) is primarily driven by education, relative wealth, and peer 'pressure' (or lack thereof) within a demographic culture within the community. The comparatively low percentage of those ages 75+ vaccinated in Swampscott may reflect a significant percentage of that cohort being homebound and immobile. These age based percentages are a general trend even in low vax states. So Delta may cause outbreaks but not swamp the hospital system because the most vulnerable are the most vaccinated. Our open and free society got off to a slow start against Covid but is looking much better now compared to the rest of the world.
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