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Five groups of unvaccinated Americans could put the whole country at risk from future outbreaks of COVID-19, new analysis shows.
Vaccination against COVID-19 is extremely uneven in the United States, with some counties showing rates above 70% while others are below 30%.
The county groups all have vaccination rates below 30% and span 12 states, including Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas.
Such flare-ups may be amplified by the Indian ‘Delta’ variant, a super-contagious variant that is now linked to the majority of new cases in the United States.
U.S. officials and public health experts are urging the vaccination to prevent future outbreaks – and the rise of even more dangerous variants – in counties like those identified by this study.
Five groups of unvaccinated Americans in southeastern US could put whole country at risk from future COVID-19 outbreaks
If the Southern and Midwestern counties remain under-vaccinated, they could sow epidemics of Covid and more dangerous variants, researchers say. Pictured: A teenager is shot in Antioch, Calif.
As of July 7, 48 percent of the U.S. population was fully immunized while 55 percent had received at least one dose.
The nation missed President Biden’s big July 4 goal of 70 percent of adults vaccinated with at least one stroke. That number is 67.2% as of July 7.
But vaccination rates vary widely from state to state – and even more from county to county.
About 80 counties have at least 60% of their population fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Many of these counties are located in the northeast and on the west coast. For example, in all but one of Connecticut’s eight counties, at least half of its population is fully vaccinated.
Meanwhile, many counties in the South and Midwest are far from protected against the coronavirus.
Over 1,000 counties have less than 30 percent of their population fully immunized.
A group of researchers from the U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Tracking Project at Georgetown University widened these disparities.
Researchers have identified 30 groups of counties that have both low vaccination rates and large populations, making them likely drivers of the virus to spread to surrounding areas.
Their analysis included data from some state public health departments – such as Texas and West Virginia – because the CDC does not provide data for many counties in those states.
“Parts of the country are just as vulnerable if not more than they were in December 2020,” Dr Shweta Bansal, a Georgetown professor of biology and senior analysis researcher, told CNN.
Of these 30 clusters, Bansal and his colleagues have identified five that are particularly vulnerable – and present a particularly high risk.
These five clusters are primarily located in the southeastern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
Together, the five groups of very high concern include more than 15 million people, of whom only 28% are fully vaccinated.
Some counties in the Northeast and West Coast are nearly 80% vaccinated, while many in the South and Midwest are well below 30%.
The Delta variant – shown in orange on these pie charts – takes over in the Midwest and parts of the South, where fewer people are vaccinated
The researchers felt that it was important to identify the clusters, because people who were geographically closer to each other were more likely to interact and transmit CIVUD-19.
So a suburban Texas county with a low vaccination rate and close to other suburban counties with low vaccination rates is more likely to be part of a major outbreak than a rural Vermont county, where people are more dispersed and more likely to be vaccinated at the state level.
“These groups of unvaccinated people are what keep us from eliminating this virus for good,” CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner said.
The Delta variant makes outbreaks in under-vaccinated areas even more likely.
This variant is now responsible for 51.7% of new cases in the country and is spreading incredibly quickly, with its share of cases doubling every two weeks.
While the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines all work well against this variant, unvaccinated Americans remain extremely vulnerable.
In Springfield, Missouri, for example, undervaccinated, 96 percent of variant cases identified in June were Delta.
The county is currently facing a wave of Covid with a record number of patients in local hospitals.
Outbreaks in unvaccinated areas – like these five county groups – may provide opportunities for the Delta variant to mutate even more.
Each time a new person is infected, the virus has the option of becoming a little more transmissible – or a little more deadly.
Public health experts fear that the virus will inevitably mutate into a variant against which our current vaccines offer little protection.
As a result, experts like Bansal are promoting vaccination, especially for those living in under-vaccinated communities.
“This holiday weekend and during this summer, follow your own risk in light of the risk of your community,” she said. wrote on Twitter The 4th of July.
“Mask yourself and social distancing to continue to protect yourself and others while having fun safe.”
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