When vaccination efforts meet a wall of resistance, epidemiologists fear the US will never achieve “herd immunity” protection against a virus that continues to devastate the world – with 2 million deaths and a record number of new infections.
Nationwide, the vaccination rate has fallen from around 3.3 million a day to around 2.8 million a day. Although the number of new cases in the United States has fallen dramatically in the past two months, the spread of new varieties could undo much of the hard-won advances.
Counties like Gila, Navajo, and Apache have done a great job so far in getting the population vaccinated – outperforming both the state and national averages.
Navajo County has fully vaccinated about 35% of its residents and 62% of those over 65 – the group with the highest risk of death. Apache County vaccinated 45% of its residents and 73% of those 65 and over – one of the state’s top feats.
Gila County has vaccinated 35% of all residents, 44% of those over 18 and 57% of those over 65, according to the federal Disease Control Centers. National tracking data lags behind many county statistics – but does capture a sense of how counties are compared to one another.
However, even in heavily vaccinated areas like Gila, Navajo, and Apache counties, only about a third of the population is fully protected – meaning the virus can still spread to the large reservoir of people who haven’t had a shot.
After months of decline, the number of new cases has increased across the state. New cases have exploded in some states, fueled by new, more infectious strains of the virus. All over the unvaccinated world, the virus has reached new heights. This means the virus has many ways to develop – more contagious, deadlier forms. So far, the current vaccines have worked quite well against the most contagious variants – but that could change.
All of this makes it critical to achieve the relative safety of herd immunity, the level of protection at which new cases cannot spread to enough unprotected people to survive and the pandemic goes away. Epidemiologists say we could achieve “herd immunity” when 70 to 90% of the population has either recovered from infection or vaccinated.
Even in areas like Navajo, Apache, and Gila counties, we remain a long way from this level of protection. A third are fully vaccinated and 10 or 15% have recovered from infection. Even among those who have recovered from infection, one shot can reduce the chances of getting infected again and carry enough virus to infect others, even if they don’t have symptoms.
And that’s what makes the dramatic slowdown in vaccination rates so alarming to the experts – especially now that the state has lifted all restrictions and ordered schools to resume face-to-face teaching without even a state mask mandate on campus.
Almost as soon as the Arizona vaccine opened to the entire population, the number of shots actually administered began to decline.
According to the Arizona Department of Health, the number of vaccines with the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson vaccine has fallen by a daily average of 16% since April 18.
The decline is alarming as only 27% of the state’s population is fully vaccinated. Pfizer and Moderna’s two-shot vaccines, as well as Johnson and Johnson’s one-shot vaccine, all offer about 85% to 95% protection from developing COVID-19 or from spreading the virus to others. They have all done well against the various contagious and more dangerous tribes already circulating in Arizona. The federal government approved the resumption of Johnson and Johnson’s one-time vaccine last week after concluding that a one-in-a-million risk of blood clots poses a far lower risk than the chance of serious illness or death due to an infection.
Back when around 3.3 million people lined up for a shot every day, experts predicted we would hit the herd immunity threshold of around 70% in early July.
But now epidemiologists are beginning to doubt that we will ever achieve herd immunity.
The virus continues to look for an opening to cause another deadly surge in infections in the US, as is currently the case in Brazil, South America, Africa and especially India.
Arizona has seen an average increase of 8% per day for the past two weeks after peaking rates dropped for months in January. The state continues to report around 711 new cases every day. Hospital admissions are also up 2%, although the total number of current hospital admissions remains low compared to January.
Apache and Navajo Counties continue to be “at high risk” for the virus to spread. The infection rate in Apache County is 7.2 per 100,000 for the past two weeks and 12 per 100,000 in Navajo County. That’s far lower than the peak infection rates here in January. However, states like Michigan and high-risk counties across the country still have infection rates in excess of 100 per 100,000.
In Gila County, the infection rate has remained low – about 2.5 per 100,000 in the past two weeks. As a result, the district is classified in the “medium risk” category.
Fortunately, death rates across the state have continued to fall – which is likely due to the fact that the majority of those over 65 were vaccinated after months of effort. Nationwide, up to 60% of seniors are fully vaccinated, and an estimated 78% had at least one dose.
However, the goal of eradicating the virus through a universal vaccination campaign has declined thanks to vaccine resistance.
According to surveys, 20 or 30% of Americans do not intend to get vaccinated. The young – especially young Republicans – are the most resilient. These younger parents can also oppose vaccination of their children if a safe and effective vaccine for teenagers and children is approved later this year.
Health officials are alarmed at the stubborn resistance to the highly effective shots, which have few serious side effects.
Misinformation about side effects, social media rumors about people who got the shot and later died of something, and even deep partisan divisions are now overshadowing attempts to deal with a pandemic that has already killed more than 316,000 Americans . The death toll from the virus is likely even higher than official figures suggest. Separate death rate studies show that the U.S. death rate in 2020 was 17% above the long-term average. The reported COVID cases account for 316,000 of these excessive deaths, leaving around 70,000 additional deaths behind. Many of these excessive deaths may also be due to COVID without appearing on official statistics.
A nationwide analysis found that people in states that won President Trump in 2020 are far more likely to say they have no plans to get vaccinated. Among the top 10 states for vaccine withholding, Trump won nine. The 10th state was Georgia, which he just lost.
Last week, a national opinion poll found that nearly half of Republicans but only 5% of Democrats said they didn’t stand a chance.
Another recent poll found that vaccination rates for older people in Republican-dominated countries were about 5% below the national average. However, vaccination rates for younger adults in the same countries were 18% below average.
State statistics also show that men are far more likely to reject the vaccine than women. About 20% more women than men have gotten the shot in Arizona to date.
In addition, people in low-income areas, particularly minority neighborhoods, are less likely to have been vaccinated. In Arizona, Hispanics account for 30% of COVID-19 cases but only 12% of vaccinations.
Interestingly, this national study showed that Apache and Navajo counties are among the most vaccine-resistant counties in the state – although Democrats dominate both counties. This could reflect the difficulty in commenting on the Navajo Reservation – which is, in fact, one of the most heavily vaccinated areas in the country and solidly democratic. The southern areas of both counties are solidly Republican. The high vaccination rates in the Hopi and Navajo Reservations may also be responsible for the relatively high vaccination rates reported nationwide.
The contrast between Democratic Coconino County and strongly republican Mohave County could more accurately capture the partisan difference in Arizona.
In Coconino County, 52% of those over 18 and 93% of those over 65 were vaccinated.
However, in Mohave County only 21% of those over 18 and 65% of those over 65 were fully vaccinated.
The declining number of people signing up for vaccines could mean COVID-19 continues to circulate, causing a steady stream of deaths and hospitalizations – like the flu – well into the future. A growing body of studies suggests that the majority of people who recover from infection still have a number of confusing medical problems months after testing non-positive. In addition, the lack of herd immunity will make the nation vulnerable to the introduction of new, more deadly strains – perhaps even to variants that can reduce protection even for the vaccinated population.
“We can’t do this alone,” said Dr. Kara Christ, Arizona Director of Health. “We need each of you who have been vaccinated to be a lawyer. If you were vaccinated, you now know that the vaccines are safe, effective, and available to everyone. Please help us get the word out. “
Peter Aleshire covers county government and other issues for the Independent. He is the former editor of the Payson Roundup. Reach out to him at [email protected]
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