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Don't Believe Vaccines Are Working In Illinois? Look At Missouri
The Show Me State serves as a warning of the dangers of low vaccination rates, and may be driving spikes here in Illinois, officials said.
Updated Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 11:54 am CT
ILLINOIS — After falling for months, new coronavirus cases are again spiking in parts of Illinois, particularly in the Metro East region, just across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. For the week ending July 9, the Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed 2,945 new cases of the virus — a 39 percent increase from the week before — and 53 additional deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.
More than 72 percent of Illinoisans have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and about 57 percent are fully vaccinated, but officials say relatively high numbers of unvaccinated individuals — especially in rural areas of the state — are driving the recent spike in cases.
"These are small increases right now downstate," Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady told the Journal Star Wednesday. "They haven't hit the equivalent of what would be trigger levels, but they're going the wrong way."
Officials worry the spike could also be driven, in part, by surges in the delta variant of the virus in neighboring Missouri, where just 40 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.
Nearly three-quarters of new cases in that state have been linked to the delta variant, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials say the delta coronavirus variant, which was first identified in India, is much more contagious than the original virus and likely deadlier, but that a full course of available vaccines still confers more than 90 percent protection against severe disease.
New cases have risen by nearly 50 percent in Missouri since June 23, and hospitalizations there have surged by about 30 percent over the same time period.
Most new cases and nearly all hospitalizations and deaths across the country are among unvaccinated people , according to America's top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Low vaccination rates coupled with lax safety standards make for a dangerous combination, he said. For example, Illinois officials said in mid-June that more than 50 teens and adults tested positive for the virus at a youth camp in central Illinois.
Only a handful of the campers were vaccinated, and the camp was not checking vaccination status or requiring unvaccinated individuals to wear masks while indoors, according to state health officials. One person was hospitalized.
Dr. Fauci told NPR last week that if low vaccination rates persist, the virus could potentially mutate into an even deadlier version.
"Viruses don't mutate if they can't replicate, and you can prevent them from replicating by vaccinating enough people so that the virus has nowhere to go," he said. "If you give the virus free rein to circulate in the community, sooner or later it's going to mutate. And one of those mutations may be a mutation that makes it a more dangerous virus."
Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 1.4 million coronavirus cases have been reported across Illinois, and 23,297 Illinoisans have died, according to state health officials. As of last week, 430 people were hospitalized statewide, including 91 patients in intensive care and 35 on ventilators.
Statewide, the test positivity rate is 1.5 percent, but officials caution that number is much higher — closer to 5 percent — in the Metro East.
For anyone skeptical of the effectiveness of the vaccine, one need only look at the Show Me State.
In Missouri, which has about half the population of Illinois, 1,181 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 369 in intensive care and 189 on ventilators. The state reported 6,331 new coronavirus cases over the past week and a test positivity rate of 12.2 percent — about as high as Illinois' positivity rate at the height of the pandemic.
In addition, some Missouri hospitals have reported overwhelmed intensive care units and a shortage of ventilators, with at least one rural hospital forced to turn away patients.
Dr. Fauci blamed the difference in vaccination rates on misinformation and partisanship — with vaccination rates and vote share matching percentage point for percentage point in many states.
"There are places in the world — many places — where the vaccination availability is practically nil. Those people would do anything to get a vaccine," he told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday. "We in the United States have enough vaccinations to give to everybody in the country, and they're life-saving."
Dr. Fauci said he didn't have a good explanation of low vaccination rates, but blamed "ideological rigidity" in some parts of the country.
"Why are we having red states and places in the South that are very highly ideological in one way not wanting to get vaccinations?" Fauci asked. "Vaccinations have nothing to do with politics. It's a public health issue. It doesn't matter who you are. The virus doesn't know whether you're a Democrat, a Republican or and independent. ... And yet, there is that divide of people wanting to get vaccinated and not wanting to get vaccinated, which is really unfortunate, because it's losing lives."
More than 607,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus — about the same number that lost their lives in the Civil War.
https://patch.com/illinois/evanston/s/ho7kv/d...aign=alert
Don't Believe Vaccines Are Working In Illinois? Look At Missouri
The Show Me State serves as a warning of the dangers of low vaccination rates, and may be driving spikes here in Illinois, officials said.
Updated Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 11:54 am CT
ILLINOIS — After falling for months, new coronavirus cases are again spiking in parts of Illinois, particularly in the Metro East region, just across the river from St. Louis, Missouri. For the week ending July 9, the Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed 2,945 new cases of the virus — a 39 percent increase from the week before — and 53 additional deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus.
More than 72 percent of Illinoisans have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and about 57 percent are fully vaccinated, but officials say relatively high numbers of unvaccinated individuals — especially in rural areas of the state — are driving the recent spike in cases.
"These are small increases right now downstate," Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady told the Journal Star Wednesday. "They haven't hit the equivalent of what would be trigger levels, but they're going the wrong way."
Officials worry the spike could also be driven, in part, by surges in the delta variant of the virus in neighboring Missouri, where just 40 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.
Nearly three-quarters of new cases in that state have been linked to the delta variant, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health officials say the delta coronavirus variant, which was first identified in India, is much more contagious than the original virus and likely deadlier, but that a full course of available vaccines still confers more than 90 percent protection against severe disease.
New cases have risen by nearly 50 percent in Missouri since June 23, and hospitalizations there have surged by about 30 percent over the same time period.
Most new cases and nearly all hospitalizations and deaths across the country are among unvaccinated people , according to America's top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Low vaccination rates coupled with lax safety standards make for a dangerous combination, he said. For example, Illinois officials said in mid-June that more than 50 teens and adults tested positive for the virus at a youth camp in central Illinois.
Only a handful of the campers were vaccinated, and the camp was not checking vaccination status or requiring unvaccinated individuals to wear masks while indoors, according to state health officials. One person was hospitalized.
Dr. Fauci told NPR last week that if low vaccination rates persist, the virus could potentially mutate into an even deadlier version.
"Viruses don't mutate if they can't replicate, and you can prevent them from replicating by vaccinating enough people so that the virus has nowhere to go," he said. "If you give the virus free rein to circulate in the community, sooner or later it's going to mutate. And one of those mutations may be a mutation that makes it a more dangerous virus."
Since the start of the pandemic, nearly 1.4 million coronavirus cases have been reported across Illinois, and 23,297 Illinoisans have died, according to state health officials. As of last week, 430 people were hospitalized statewide, including 91 patients in intensive care and 35 on ventilators.
Statewide, the test positivity rate is 1.5 percent, but officials caution that number is much higher — closer to 5 percent — in the Metro East.
For anyone skeptical of the effectiveness of the vaccine, one need only look at the Show Me State.
In Missouri, which has about half the population of Illinois, 1,181 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19, including 369 in intensive care and 189 on ventilators. The state reported 6,331 new coronavirus cases over the past week and a test positivity rate of 12.2 percent — about as high as Illinois' positivity rate at the height of the pandemic.
In addition, some Missouri hospitals have reported overwhelmed intensive care units and a shortage of ventilators, with at least one rural hospital forced to turn away patients.
Dr. Fauci blamed the difference in vaccination rates on misinformation and partisanship — with vaccination rates and vote share matching percentage point for percentage point in many states.
"There are places in the world — many places — where the vaccination availability is practically nil. Those people would do anything to get a vaccine," he told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday. "We in the United States have enough vaccinations to give to everybody in the country, and they're life-saving."
Dr. Fauci said he didn't have a good explanation of low vaccination rates, but blamed "ideological rigidity" in some parts of the country.
"Why are we having red states and places in the South that are very highly ideological in one way not wanting to get vaccinations?" Fauci asked. "Vaccinations have nothing to do with politics. It's a public health issue. It doesn't matter who you are. The virus doesn't know whether you're a Democrat, a Republican or and independent. ... And yet, there is that divide of people wanting to get vaccinated and not wanting to get vaccinated, which is really unfortunate, because it's losing lives."
More than 607,000 Americans have now died from the coronavirus — about the same number that lost their lives in the Civil War.
https://patch.com/illinois/evanston/s/ho7kv/d...aign=alert
