Today I’ve been musing about the data presented at two sites: the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Tracker site that displays a map showing the COVID-19 vaccination rate by state and the Kaiser Family Foundation’s tabular reckoning of vaccination rates by race or ethnicity (and state).
The first thing that jumps out at you from the Mayo Clinic’s map of the percentage of fully vaccinated people by state:
is a sharp Red State-Blue State dichotomy. Since it supports the “stupid, ignorant Trump supporter” trope, that explanation has been fully embraced by the Creative Class Blue State dwellers that comprise a large proportion of web users but I think that, once you dig a little farther into the data cf. the KFF table, it’s clear that is at best a superficial first order approximation of what we’re seeing. Just to cite one example of what I mean the correlation between vaccination rates for white people in Red States and black people in those same states is quite close. Indeed, percentage black and Hispanic population is a better predictor of vaccination rates (they are inversely correlated) than whether Republicans or Democrats dominate the state.
The relevance of per capita income by state should also be noted. Mississippi and Alabama have the lowest vaccination rates and are also the poorest states. That suggests that educational attainment and how you earn your living are factors as well. Those are weakly correlated with intelligence but only weakly. Just as one anecdote the smartest guy I know came from a blue collar family. He got a PhD in mathematics and spent 15 years as a math prof before taking a job as a software developer because the pay was better.
To my eye the factors appear to be preference, location, income, politics, how you earn your livelihood, race or ethnicity, educational attainment, and intelligence in roughly descending order of importance and those are unquestionably interrelated. How you craft a strategy for encouraging more people to get vaccinated is anybody’s guess. Preferences are hard things to change. So, for example, I think that public service announcements with a wide array of black leaders from all walks of life (politics, sports, entertainment, religion, etc.) is a prudent step but how effective it will be I couldn’t say.
Here in Lincoln, Ne. the board of education has decided schoolchildren not vaccinated must wear masks. Vaccinated may feel free to go mask-less.
That will bring peer pressure and adolescent angst into play and guarantee some very angry parents.
At this point, after more than 1 1/2 years, everyone (as in every single person, no exceptions) in the US (and world) has been exposed to the virus dozens if not hundreds of times. Less than 10% of the population has caught the disease, and less than half of those over 12 have been vaccinated.
It is self-evident that the natural immunity to this disease is much higher than the CDC tells us. They basically claim no one has natural immunity. Obviously false.
This is the most seriously over-hyped disease since the Ebola scare sometime ago or the swine flu a few decades ago. It was a bad flu-like disease with a death rate about twice or so of the Hong Kong and Asian flus. The economic costs are still with us, with scattered shortages of various things, products disappearing for weeks, people paid not to work…
The worst of it is the Ruling Class has learned how readily people will submit, just how supine Americans, Brits, et al. are. They now know that they can impose a permanent dictatorship whenever they want.
You mean for our own good, right Bob?
In Illinois, the county with the lowest vaccination rate is Alexander County at the southernmost tip: 14.69% fully vaccinated.
Alexander has the highest percentage of African-Americans in Illinois, but the area is considered rural, far more resembling rural Southern blacks, which might make sense given I think their ancestors migrated to the Cairo area during the Civil War from Kentucky and Mississippi when it was the headquarters of the Union Armies of the West.
The Illinois Governor was asked about this in the Spring and gave sort of a defensive response about small counties having difficulties organizing vaccination programs and the state just watches and monitors. The closest I could find to media coverage was from a local community leader (black) saying that everyone is wearing masks and being respectful, so people don’t feel the need to get vaccinated. (Jason Heyward, baseball player from Atlanta, seemed to voice a similar masks-yes, vaccine-no; he is African-American with parents who graduated from Dartmouth)
In any event, there are cultural issues that I believe are being overlooked.
I’ve grouped those as “preference”, PD. I agree.
“The racial makeup of the county was 60.9% white, 35.4% black or African American, 0.3% American Indian, 0.2% Asian, 0.1% Pacific islander, 1.4% from other races, and 1.7% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1.9% of the population.
Named for: William M. Alexander
Largest city: Cairo
Alexander County, Illinois – Wikipedia
You don’t have to guess if Republicans are not getting vaccinated as it has been polled many times.
“The numbers are not surprising. A Monmouth University poll in March found that 36% of Republicans said they did not plan to get inoculated, compared to 6% of Democrats. An NPR-PBS Newshour-Marist survey around the same time found that 49% of Republican men said they would not get the shot, compared to 6% of Democratic men.”
KFF has some of the most detailed data. Since March the share of vaccinations going to Hispanics and blacks has been increasing. Suggests that the minority populations are persuadable and maybe not so much the white population. There is also quite a bit of heterogeneity in the states and not in any real predictable way I can see. Percentages of blacks and whites are the same in Alabama and Mississippi, states with large black populations. In Florida blacks are half as likely. Blacks in Massachusetts are more likely to be vaccinated than whites in Florida. Blacks in MA are more likely to vaccinated than whites in about 40 states at 55% (Idaho whites 29%).
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/
Steve
@steve,
Out of those fully-vaccinated in Alexander County, 57.5% are white, 33.8% are black, and the rest are other/unknown. So, the very low vaccination levels seem roughly proportionate to racial demographics. The partisan voting index for Alexander County is +2 Republican, and the overall vaccination rates are lower than other counties in Southern Illinois which lean much more Republican. So it seems to me that there are probably both white and black vaccine skeptics probably for different reasons. That the county has only 6,000 people would have made it difficult for local administration and it looks like most of those fully vaccinated did so in early Spring, probably in an institutional setting.
It’s becoming more and more clear that regards their welfare African Americans require and deserve enormous levels of social support.
Including helping them to understand their best interests and directing their actions.
President Biden I hope understands this and will spend whatever it takes to bring them into parity in all areas with their white slaveholders.
A suggested path is to fit goals with what the tools can achieve.
Its a way of saying data from Israel & UK (which both have significantly more of their population vaccinated — in Israel’s case, mostly Pfizer like the US) is that from a public health perspective, the vaccines are effective at keeping deaths and hospitalizations at acceptable levels; but they are semi-effective for preventing the spread of COVID.
Given the data continues to show that age and obesity (and associated conditions of cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome) raises the risk from COVID by 3-10x; for example, Washington state shows 98% of deaths from COVID were over 40. The government should focus its messaging on those > 40 and/or those with BMI > 25. Tell these people the truth; vaccines aren’t stopping the spread the COVID, but they will keep one from going to the hospital / dying.
I had to show ID to get vaccinated. I think its pretty clear that the cause of low vaccination rates among blacks and rural people is the inability to find photocopiers in Kinko’s copy shops.
We did not require an ID, but then people up here are smart enough to know how to spell their names without looking at an ID. Probably not so much in S Carolina.
Steve
BTW, steve, I’m not disputing that political ideology is A factor but I don’t think it’s the only factor. How else do you explain Democrats in Blue States getting vaccinations at low levels (as is the case for blacks in Chicago).
By jove, Steve, you may you may have the key insight. Of course, people do seem to have been taught about capitalizing names down here. Maybe it’s just a southern thing.
Drew- The hallmark of the southern male name is not capitalization but rather the double name. If it alliterates even better. Might want to think about a good second one for yourself. Maybe Duane?
Dave- Never said it was the only factor. I pointed out that there are lots of surveys showing that Republican men say they wont get vaccinated but that doesnt say why though it is hard to believe politics and tribal affiliation arent part of it.
For blacks it is noticeable that it varies so much. 55% vaccinated in Massachusetts. 68% in Oregon. In almost every state you have a higher percentage of blacks vaccinated than you do whites in Idaho. Just spitballing, I would guess that it has something with how much they trust the local government/medical people. A black person is pretty comfortable getting vaccinated in Oregon, MA, Vermont but not Florida where they are only about 1/3 as likely to be vaccinated. Not sure about Alaska where blacks are more likely to be vaccinated than whites. Sort of assume a small numbers effect.
Steve
That is a point I have made in the past. There are a few (not enough) studies of heroic measures in health care. Blacks as a group are MORE likely to seek heroic measures. It’s a paradox. Not trusting the system leads them to seek more from it, presumably because they don’t believe they’re getting a fair shake.
I interpret the data a bit differently. I think there’s a closer correlation between blacks and whites within states than there is with either between states. Some of that may have to do with how they earn their livelihoods. Black farmers are more like white farmers than they are like urban black workers.
which is why I listed them among the many factors.
Look at the data for Hispanics and Asians. In South Dakota only 3% of Hispanics are vaccinated, just 9% of Asians. This is occupationally related? Look at PA. 17% of Asians and 28% Hispanics. I suspect you could find some data for your theory so there could be some truth but I dont think it will come close to explaining it all.
Steve