agip wrote:
Marietta Tar Heel wrote:
Haven't felt the need to post on this thread in a while, but with the Delta variant causing another wave, I thought I'd add my two cents.
We have the triumverate here in Georgia - lots of Trump-followers, high percentage of African-Americans (~32%), and a very large white evangelical population.
This, in part, has led to our abyssmal vaccination rate - 41% fully and 46% partially.
We have done a good job recently in the African-American community to close the gap. Early on there was significant hesitancy, but in the last few months we've increased shots. Now we are at 37% (still very poor percentage) with at least one shot compared to 41% of whites. Asians, of course, are much more open to the vaccine and nearly 80% have gotten a shot.
I have no confidence that Georgia (or the US in general) will be able to reach the Trump-followers or evangelicals in large numbers. I cringe every time I drive by churches full of people crammed together as if the pandemic is over. Very irresponsible for them to gather, vaccinated or not, as the Delta variant roars through their community. It's as if they learned nothing from the other waves.
The ignorance of these two groups may keep us in this cycle for a very long time.
We've gone from a 7-day average of 200 to 2700+ cases in about five weeks. And have gone from 400 hospitalizations to 2700. For now, deaths have remained around 5/day for the last two months. With the increase in cases and hospitalizations, this number will inevitablely go up. Hopefully, not too much higher. Georgia has vaccinated ~97% of the most vulnerable residents (65+) which should keep deaths lower than previous cycles.
it does seem that in some comparable countries like UK and Netherlands this wave ends very very quickly.
I'm hoping the same thing happens here.
I hope so too.