A CDC Conundrum

On the CDC’s most recent COVID Data Tracker an interesting trend appears. This comprehensive set of data will not be believable to those who are pro-vaccine, and whose mantra is some form of “the anti-vaccers are dumb and stupid.” 

A conundrum! From the Data Tracker … The number of Covid cases, Covid deaths, and Covid hospitalizations are all impressively down compared to January of this year. (Detected infections are down to less than 30,000 a day from the high of over 800,000 a day in mid-January, according to CDC data. The seven-day average of currently hospitalized had dropped to about 11,000 on April 1, down from nearly 150,000 in January, though, according to the CDC, the vaccines still lower the risk of severe disease.) Similar trends are now being seen in Great Britain and Ireland.

To me the decreasing case numbers are not surprising as winter is over and Spring has begun. However what is surprising is the data from different counties in the U.S.

Counties with the highest rates of vaccination against COVID-19 are currently experiencing more cases than those with the lowest vaccination rates. To repeat, this is from data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

From Epoch News:

The 500 counties where 62–95 percent of the population has been vaccinated detected more than 75 cases per 100,000 residents on average in the past week. The 500 counties where 11–40 percent of the population has been vaccinated detected about 58 cases per 100,000 residents on average in the past week.

The least vaccinated counties tended to be much smaller, averaging less than 20,000 in population. The most vaccinated counties had an average population of over 330,000. More populous counties, however, weren’t more likely to have higher case rates.

Even when comparing counties of similar size, the most vaccinated ones tended to have higher case rates than those least vaccinated, and this held up in a myriad of different county populations from over a million to from 100,000 to 200,000.

Now I am not presupposing that the CDC data is 100% correct. No data actually is. Nonetheless, the consistency of this data is straightforward and convincing.

So what is the explanation for this apparent CDC conundrum? 

The most likely reason is that the vaccines lose their effectiveness over time. If this is the answer to the conundrum, then why are ‘those that know best’ recommending more boosters? President Biden, ostensibly, got his second booster a few days ago, and certainly all of the sheep should follow right along with the sheep herder, shouldn’t they?

On the other hand, could it be that natural immunity is the major reason that the unvaccinated are now doing better than the vaccinated? If this is the reason, could it be that not receiving any boosters or further boosters, and getting Omicron would be the wise choice for most individuals?

4/6/22

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