March 18, 2021 - Vaccination Rates by County of Residence
Vaccination Rates by County of Residence
March 18, 2021
In my last newsletter Monday, I suggested that new daily cases had plateaued at around 500 per day. The case counts yesterday and today bear that out - 558 cases yesterday (net of 201-case backlog from tests performed between 10/1/20 and 3/8/21) and 572 cases reported today. The 7-day average of new cases (excluding the backlogs) is 511 cases per day and the positivity rate for today is 12.3%. Record low hospitalizations dropped even lower (3.7 patients per hospital), but 54 Alabamians reportedly died in the last 2 days, taking the State’s death toll to 10,391. Nationally, the death toll has now surpassed 550,000.
Last week in Alabama, an average of 27.2K doses per day were administered, a 9% increase over the week before. According to Bloomberg News, Alabama has administered at least one dose to 893,767 people, covering 34.3% of the prioritized population and 18.2% of the State’s entire population (national average = 22.2%). At least 524,000 people have been fully vaccinated, or 10.7% of the entire population (national average = 12.0%).
The ADPH vaccine dashboard contains an interesting new page that purports to show the percentage of Alabama residents (16 years or older) who have received one or more doses, presented by county of residence. In other words, someone who resides in Jefferson County and is vaccinated in Cullman County counts in the total for Jefferson County, not Cullman County (Alabama residents who traveled outside the state to get vaccinated are presumably excluded altogether).
The ADPH dashboard contains results that some may find surprising. The counties with the highest rates of vaccination are rural Black Belt counties with high concentrations of black residents - Perry (28%); Wilcox (28%); Marengo (27%); Dallas (26%); Conecuh (26%); Clarke (26%). The counties with the lowest rates are also rural and predominantly white - Russell (9%); Chilton (12%); DeKalb (14%); Cherokee (16%); Blount (16%); Cleburne (16%). The four major metropolitan counties of Jefferson (22%); Mobile (22%); Madison (19%); and Montgomery (20%) fall in between. Recent national polling has shown a dangerous partisan split on vaccine hesitancy, which could be reflected in these early numbers on the ADPH dashboard.
A recent large study out of Denmark, published in The Lancet, casts light on the duration of immunity after recovery from natural infection. Among the conclusions drawn from the study, (i) prior infection reduces the chances of a second infection by about 80 percent in people under 65 and by about half in those older than 65 and (ii) most people who recover from Covid-19 remain shielded from the virus for at least 6 months. The finding that immunities after natural infection may be effective for 6 months (rather than 3 months) will accelerate the pace of herd immunity.
Finally, some good news out of Europe. The drug regulator in the European Union announced that the AstraZeneca vaccine is safe, a finding that hopefully will alleviate concerns about possible side effects. A review of millions of cases found that the vaccine does not increase the overall risk of blood clots. In response, Italy announced it will resume AstraZeneca vaccinations, beginning tomorrow. Other European countries that are suffering a recent wave of infection are expected to follow suit. The totals:
3/3 - 2733
3/4 - 922
3/5 - 811
3/6 - 524
3/9 - 524
3/10- 782
3/11- 865
3/12- 448
3/13- 594
3/14- 368
3/15- 549 (exclusive of backlog)
3/16- 488
3/17- 558 (exclusive of backlog)
3/18- 572