Getting international news out of the way first, Japan has extended the state of emergency in Tokyo and eight other prefectures until June 20 at the earliest. Opening ceremonies of the Olympics are set for July 23. Meanwhile, Japan's vaccine rollout is the slowest among industrialized nations with only 2.4 percent of people fully vaccinated. The government's schedule calls for only people over 65 to be fully vaccinated before the Games. In terms of the Chinese origins of the coronavirus, intelligence officials have supposedly told the White House that they have untapped evidence on covid origins. They just need more time for computer analysis of that evidence.
The CDC predicts covid cases will fall over the coming month due to vaccinations. To help, New York City plans to send buses to beaches and parks to vaccinate people. California is starting an incentive program called Vax for the Win. Ten residents who have had at least one shot will get $1.5 million each. Another 30 will get $50,000 each. And two million lucky residents will get $50 gift cards. Right now, 56 percent of California's population has gotten at least one dose, while 42 percent are fully vaccinated.
Wisconsin offers a good example of vaccine issues. Its vaccine rates vary between urban and rural areas and different political, racial, or religious leanings. Forty-seven percent of Wisconsin residents have gotten at least one dose of vaccine, lower than Vermont's 70 percent but higher than Mississippi's 34 percent. While the vaccination rate for Republicans is going up, 20 percent still say that they definitely will not get vaccinated. Among Democrats, that percentage is four. In Wisconsin, the best predictor of vaccine skepticism is a belief that the 2020 election was stolen from XPot. The lowest vaccination rate among counties is 25 percent for Taylor County in north-central Wisconsin. There, XPot received 72 percent of the vote. In Clark Country, home to large Amish and Mennonite communities, 26 percent have gotten at least one dose. In Clark, XPot received 67 percent of the vote. Says the immunization director there, "At some point we will have vaccinated everyone who wants the vaccine. I think we may be at that point in Clark County."
Interestingly, a rural county, Door County, has the highest rate in the state for full vaccination, 56 percent. Why? Door County is dependent upon tourism, giving some incentive. Also, though, before vaccines had even been delivered, medical center staff began hosting weekly Facebook Q&A sessions that got thousands of views. Besides the tourism angle, residents of Door County thus had more vaccine information than did many other rural counties. In a past post to this blog and if I remember the entity correctly, there was initial hesitancy about vaccinations among members of the Fire Department of New York City. Someone collected questions from the firefighters and had those questions answered by doctors. The hesitancy lessened, and the vaccination rate rose.
Idaho's governor is in Nashville, Tennessee for a meeting of the Republican Governors Association, so the lieutenant governor--who just happens to have recently announced her bid to become governor--banned mask mandates. Her order states that wearing masks has done "significant mental, social, and economic harm" and failed to serve a health or safety purpose. When the cat's away, the mice will play? I don't expect that the governor will return and overturn the order, but I can always hope.
2 comments:
What's that saying, "Ignorance is bliss"? I'm not sure it applies here.
Here we have rising numbers after a long spell of falling numbers which presumably can be laid at the door of the Indian variant. Depending which expert is wheeled out it's either disaster or no big deal. It's significant because on the 14th of June the Government has to announce whether they are continuing as planned with the final stage of reopening on the 21st.
I don't know how it will pan out with the unvaccinated in the long term. Here it's less of a political thing so the chip/mind control line makes it easy to regard them as weird. Maybe as time goes on and they can see that 40 million people have not developed tentacles they may be more willing to stick their arm out? It will drag through the courts until it has been determined whether employers can require vaccination, you'd expect that to be spearheaded by an employer of carers but it was a plumber that nailed its colours to the mast in January.
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