If you missed Digby’s post Wednesday about young, unvaccinated people dying of Covid in Alabama, please read it.
Axios reports:
Clinical trials showed both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to be 94-95% effective at preventing serious illness and death. There will be people in the other 5-6%. That does not mean the vaccines don’t work; those cases are noteworthy precisely because they are rare.
Even Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) who just received the vaccine on Sunday admitted, “When you talk to people who run hospitals, in New Orleans or other states, 90% of people in hospital with delta variant have not been vaccinated. That’s another signal the vaccine works.”
The flood of new Covid infections (Delta variant) across the U.S. is among the unvaccinated. It seemed the pandemic was subsiding earlier this spring. But with Delta being more transmissible, it is back as deadly as ever.
Axios again:
Where it stands: Nationwide, the average number of new cases per day was up 55% over the past week.
- New cases increased in 46 states, and many of those increases are substantial.
- Florida is now averaging just under 6,500 new cases per day — by far the most of any state, and a 91% jump from the week before.
- New cases more than doubled over the past week in Mississippi — from about 320 per day to about 660 per day. The state has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country; just 34% of its residents are fully vaccinated.
“Breakthrough infections” among those already vaccinated tend to be non-life-threatening. Right now, 97% of new cases are among the unvaccinated whom right-wing influencers have heavily propagandized — in the name of freedom — to resist getting one of the readily available vaccines.
Even they are suddenly “woke” to the threat of the Delta variant. Something has gotten their attention since nothing is likely to have pricked their consciences. One might speculate it is climbing death rates in red states, but it is more likely the GOP’s approval polling.
Nothing takes away your freedom like losing your life.