Never say never. 
The most covid vaccine reluctant individual in my extended family, who has accepted a lot of conspiracy theories going around at face value, and who is also by far the most vulnerable, is coming around.
I want to give credit to the right person for calling this one. I think it was @splash1 who said something like, would you feel different if you thought things were not going to go back to normal?
@MarylandJOE, the first two links suggest that rural counties are less vaccinated than urban counties and that even suburban counties may be less vaccinated than the cities they surround. While it does not rule out your statement about inner city residents, it is likely not the biggest effect from a statistical standpoint. Instead, the biggest effect seems to be political affiliation. Iām not making it political. Politicians and media personalities and their followers have made it a political and Iād say tribal issue.
I have read that African-Americans are getting vaccinated at a lower rate because of a history of mistreatment by public health authorities. But, the reasons we are talking about āa particular groupā is because it seems to be the biggest statistical effect, Pointing out other groups who also have low vaccination rates doesnāt really change the apparently big effect. Vaccine reluctance does seem to be correlated with a particular political persuasion and one can see and point to politicians, pundits and radio personalities of that persuasion who are stoking vaccine reluctance.
There are clearly other effects. The article I linked at the bottom of my post suggested that in NC, the correlation of vaccination rates with income was stronger than with support for Trump.
Interestingly, Native Americans are getting vaccinated at a higher rate than other areas in their states. I suspect that they also have not had great experiences with public health authorities. What that suggests to me is that a well-designed program of persuasively presented information could increase the vaccination rates among African-Americans. In contrast, for the folks for whom this seems tribal, I donāt think persuasive appeals are likely to have a big impact. High death rates might as might be persuasive appeals by those who influence them.
@bluebayou, good point about zip code level data versus county level data. Apparently there are 10 times as many zip codes as counties. That could highlight the effect @MarylandJOE brings up.
@MACmiracle, very good news.
What was made political by the āother sideā (i.e., the Democrats)? Masking, social distancing, the reality of the pandemic that was not a āhoaxā?
Please let us know what precisely you mean.
That was a reply to something I typed in English and you quoted what I said. Where āherd immunityā came from, youāll have to share with me.
If this is an example of āraised, debated, and soundly rejectedā around here, I donāt regret reading back upthread to see where the issue as to whether or not different protocols in different locales made any real difference as to eventual spread was put to bed.
Again, what I said was: āNot a single direct reply that either acknowledged or disputed the idea that a natural immunity should relieve anyone of being told to get the vaccine. Instead, crickets.ā
Problem is, thereās more than one:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/dr-makary-says-natural-immunity-is-more-effective-then-vaccine-immunity/ar-AAMX3sM
Heard the author of the one I linked mention an Israeli study and flatly state: CDC has enough data on all US states, as to natural immunity, that their pushing of the Kentucky study was simply data fishing.
They ran them all and went public with the one they wanted to promote, in other words.
Sad thing is, for every John Hopkins quality doctor saying one thing, you have another saying something else. Seriously, this issue has taken on all the aspects of a big time tort trial, with galleries rooting for their sides expert witness.
Might be a lot of things, but it aināt science anymore.
Very convincing. Especially when youāre dead.
Wow. Just wow.
I take replies seriously, so:
Is the concern as to my continued health or your own? Guessing youāre vaccinated and Iām content as to my immunity, soā¦?
Nope. My concern is that relying on immunity from the illness also brings one into the real possibility of death and/or severe illness and health damage lasting a long time/forever.
Vaccination is the best risk option. If you have the antibodies to Covid-19, that is great. I do not know about your particular situation. If you have already been infected and have developed the antibodies, that is very different than saying āIām ok to get sick,and get my immunity from that.ā My point is that the person who says that has no idea if they are going to die, be seriously ill, and/or transmit to others.
The absolute safest course is to vaccinate, mask, and distance. If the world (and the US) had done this, we might have been in a much better situation. As it is, these issues have become so politicized that we have serious regional issues in the US that tic-tac precisely with the political nonsense.
My concern is my health, my familyās health, your health, and the worldās health. They are inextricably linked. The more unvaccinated people you have in the world (as well as non-masking and non-socially distancing), the greater the chance of mutations emerging like Delta.
THAT IS SCIENCE.
Hereās another
Sorry, I just linked the previous, let me see if I can link the other, itās under peer review but probably wonāt get passed
92310 = Fort Irwin National Training Center (a military base)
ā2% vaccinatedā may be because much of the population is made up of military service members without state vaccination records (some of whom may have gotten vaccinated elsewhere).
Your concerns are your own, as are mine. That weāve reached a point where Iām told they overlap is where Iām getting off the train.
Mask, distance, get whatever boosters you likeā¦ Iāll do you the solid of not crowding you in a grocery store. Eventually, weāll all get a natural dose of immunity of whatever is going around when ours wears off.
Iām betting it will much more benign than the original version. Not an optimist about a lot of life but I am as to that.
Just look at what happened in India. And thatās the same variant thatās here. Talk to the families of the millions who died and/or got very ill. Delta is worse than the previous strands, and the more that folks donāt pay attention to the science, the more fertile is the ground for new and even worse variants.
This is one world. Stuff travels no matter how we want to dismiss this. And science rules.
Donāt worry about it. There will be no end of these, most never seeing the light of day other than when the media promotes the pre-print.
In the end, we all believe what we wish.
No. Thatās wrong. There is basic science involved here.
It is not āfake newsā, much like the former President of the US would like folks to believe. Ask Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott as to whether they FINALLY realize their respective politicization of something so very basic was the correct approach.
Worldometer should be an accepted source and Indiaās mortality rate seems to be 16% of that of the US.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Even allowing for bad reporting of deaths, India wouldnāt appear to be an example of the Indian variant being more deadlyā¦ could be missing something, though.
Are you seriously contending that the Delta variant is benign as the other variants?
If so, thereās nothing more we need to discuss.
Itās a study of over 50,000 employees of the Cleveland Clinic, looked at incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection: almost zero in previously infected unvaccinated, previously infected vaccinated, and previously uninfected vaccinated compared with a steady increase in previously uninfected subjects who remained unvaccinated
The authors stated that prior infection was as protective as vaccination
However under peer-review, they will say that no
surveillance testing was going on, meaning that there will be some infected unvaccinateds who werenāt identified because they were asymptomatic. And this was also before Delta
Appreciate it.
That one I know of, along with the walk-back as to limitations.