Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection…
— from ‘Pfizer and BioNTech Announce Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19 Achieved Success in First Interim Analysis from Phase 3 Study’, November 9, 2020.
It was all looking so good. If you didn’t look too close.
On June 14, the Washington Post shared an article with the title, “Coronavirus infections dropping where people are vaccinated, rising where they are not, Post analysis finds.” The article, by reporters Dan Keating, Naema Ahmed, Fenit Nirappil, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Lenny Bernstein, proposed that “states with higher vaccination rates now have markedly fewer coronavirus cases, as infections are dropping in places where most residents have been immunized and are rising in many places people have not…”
That was on June 14. Fingers crossed, it looked like Pfizer and Moderna were the good guys, and the folks refusing to get the shot were going to be the losers.
But what happens, when a virus won’t play by the rules?
I mean, people — humans — usually play by the rules. Not always, of course. Especially, politicians and pharmaceutical companies might fudge the rules now and then. There’s a quote attributed to actress Katherine Hepburn: “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” And that goes double for pharmaceutical companies, who are some of the most fun-loving people around.
And say you’re a virus? Don’t you want to have a little fun, too?
On August 12, some of the same Washington Post reporters found a (strikingly?) different situation, as they looked at the so-called “hot spots” at a county-level. Fenit Nirappil, Dan Keating, Maria Aguilar, Naema Ahmed, and Aaron Steckelberg posted a story with maps entitled, “A majority of Americans in highly vaccinated counties now live in covid hot spots, Post analysis finds”.
The Post reporters included three maps of ‘hot spots’.
High Vaccination Rates (more than 54% of the county vaccinated). Medium Vaccination Rates (between 40% and 54% vaccinated). Low Vaccination Rates (less than 40% vaccinated).
The ‘hot spots’ were shown, appropriately enough, in red. Archuleta County — which I was pretty sure was a ‘hot spot’ for infection and thus worthy of special note — showed up as nondescript ‘gray’ on the Medium Vaccination Rates map. Boring!
One might estimate (if one were a humor writer) that maybe one-of-of-ten counties with Medium Vaccination Rates are ‘hot spots’? A really rough estimate.
Next is a map of High Vaccination Rate counties. Apparently, not too many US counties have passed the “more than 54% vaccinated” threshold chosen by the Washington Post researchers. If you were working in the public health industry, you might find this map depressing.
Maybe one-out-of-ten Highly Vaccinated counties are hot spots? Like, maybe the vaccine isn’t doing much at all to reduce the hot spots? Obviously something strange is going on, if US counties with High Vaccination Rates are just as prone to become ‘hot spots’ as counties with lower vaccination rates…
If you were a virus, however… maybe a virus who didn’t play by the rules?… you might find these maps to be highly encouraging. You might also enjoy comparing some recent maps from The New York Times. If you were a naughty virus. Below is a map showing, in the darker colors, the countries with the Highest Vaccination Rates.
We note several nations with High Vaccination Rates: the United States, Spain, France, the UK, China, Israel, Australia. From a scientific standpoint, one would expect these countries to have lower-than-average infection rates. Right? But if one were a fun-loving virus, one might want, more than anything, to mess with the statisticians’ heads.
When we look at the NYT map of new infection rates, below, we see no evidence that High Vaccination Rates automatically result in lower infection rates, nationally. S
Yes, some of the nations with the best vaccinations rates also have the Lowest Infection Rates, as we would expect. China and Australia, for example.
But other nations with the Highest Vaccination Rates — the United States, Spain, France, the UK, Israel — are currently seeing some of the worst rates of new infections anywhere in the world.
The statistical disconnect is also seen at the lower end of the vaccination scale. Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan, which have miserable vaccination rates, also show very low infection rates. But Iran and Botswana — also with Very Low Vaccination Rates — have some of the highest infection rates anywhere.
Like the lady said. If you follow all the rules, you miss all the fun.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.