While most of California has improved its pandemic outlook, rural pockets where few people are vaccinated continue to suffer

In counties in California where most people voted for Trump and where they still think COVID wasn’t a big enough deal to shut down businesses, Delta’s push is raging – and it’s a drastically different picture in these counties in terms of deaths and hospitalizations.

Much like the nation’s red states that have suffered far worse consequences from the pandemic due to disinformation and politicization of the pandemic by Republican governors, California’s red counties have also seen more illnesses and deaths than d ‘other parts of the state.

In San Bernardino County, which has a population of just 200,000 larger than that of Santa Clara County, 5,158 people have died from COVID-19, including 51 in the past week. In Santa Clara County, which has strict mask mandates and where residents have followed most public health orders, 1,807 pandemic deaths have occurred – a third as many as in San Bernardino County. Vaccination rates in the two counties are also very different, with 57.4% of the eligible population in San Bernardino now vaccinated, compared to more than 84% in Santa Clara County.

As the New York Times reports, Lassen County in northern California now has a lower vaccination rate than the lowest rate of any state, West Virginia. Only 35% of Lassen County residents aged 12 and older have been vaccinated, compared to 47% in West Virginia. Meanwhile, Marin County can boast 87% of eligible residents receiving vaccines, and San Francisco it’s 83% – with 88% having received at least one dose.

Even Republican-leaning San Diego County is doing pretty well, with more than 79% of residents aged 12 and over now fully vaccinated.

Lack of confidence in government, science and public health measures essentially amounts to his own trouble now, and this contributes to COVID infections, overcrowded rural intensive care units and continued deaths.

Kevin Malotte, professor emeritus of epidemiology at Cal State Long Beach, told The Times in August that there is a snowball effect coming from people who still do not accept that the coronavirus is dangerous, and therefore indulge themselves more often to riskier activities. and do not wear masks.

“Lack of mask measures, lack of concern about it, lack of vaccination are all types of the syndrome, and I think that’s what we’re seeing correlated with the high rates,” said Malotte.

Some data shows that unvaccinated Californians are eight times more likely to contract COVID-19 and 16 times more likely to die from it than those who are vaccinated.

But, as Malotte puts it, counties like Lassen and San Bernardino still have low vaccination rates “because they don’t think it’s that bad, so they don’t take other mitigating measures either.” .

It will be all the more depressing if, as we enter a new pandemic holiday season, most cities in California have returned to relative normalcy as hospitals in Lassen County and elsewhere are overrun with patients. Unvaccinated COVID.

Meanwhile, vaccination warrants multiply, with Los Angeles joining San Francisco to demand proof of vaccination to enter all indoor restaurants, cinemas, gyms and barber shops, starting next month.