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You're vaccinated. Isn't that supposed to protect you from unvaccintated (and/or unmasked) people like me?

Kinda, not completely, but that's not my only concern.

My Concerns

  • Vaccinated people still can get COVID, though chances are much lower & risk of severe illness is much lower
  • About 15,000 children in Macon County can't get vaccinated because they're too young
  • Some people are immuno-compromised, so they don't keep anti-bodies around after being vaccinated. This includes some cancer patients.
  • I care about our unvaccinated community members, too.
  • Our hospitals get overloaded when COVID spikes, and some non-covid patients get neglected
  • The economic cost of being hospitalized is significant, whereas the vaccine is much more affordable
  • The economic & lifestyle cost of shutdowns. People requiring isolation can't go to work
  • Medical professionals don't deserve to be exposed to preventable illness
  • COVID can mutate & worse variants develop as a result. Hence the Delta variant.

I care about our unvaccinated community members, too

I've seen a lot of stories about unvaccinated people getting severely ill & begging for the vaccine when it was too late. I may get angry at you for your choices, but I don't think you deserve to get severely ill, plagued with hospital debt, to die, to see your friends or family die or get super sick. I also want you to be able to live your life & enjoy the freedoms that we normally have.

COVID can mutate

You probably know by know that there are many variants of COVID. Delta is one that was particularly problematic due to it's spreadability. I've read about other variants that were more dangerous, but not more spreadable. I fear a strain that will be more deadly and more spreadable. I fear strains that will be vaccine resistant. I did not collect links when reading about the variants.

Hospitals overloaded when COVID spikes

Official sources:

  • HSHS (st mary's hospital systems) & MHS (dmh's hospital systems) put out weekly reports with hospitalizations. See my covid page where I track these reports
  • Macon County Health Department (MCHD) held a press conference on August 13th with CEOs from both local hospitals talking about the rise in cases & the significant number of COVID patients.
  • MCHD puts out weekly reports with hospitalization counts (also tracked on my covid page)
  • An august 27th report from WAND

Anecdotal sources:

  • My neighbor had a family member transferred out of state because no beds were available here
  • My mom's nurse at St John's in Springfield told us they were one of the only hospitals with beds available, so other hospitals were transferring patients to them
  • A different neighbor who works at a hospital talked to me about it

Vaccinated people can still get COVID

In Macon County in August 2021, there were 1,672 COVID cases. 15,000 of them were unvaccinated folks. 172 cases were vaccinated folks.

src: Macon County Health Department a pie chart showing: In Macon County in August 2021, there were 1,672 COVID cases. 15,000 of them were unvaccinated folks. 172 cases were vaccinated folks.

Immunocompromised risk

See https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html and https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/immuno.html

15,000 children who can't get vaccinated

See this facebook thread for discussion about this count.

Estimate 1: This estimate is based upon 2019 census data using a simple approach that assumes an equal distribution across all ages.

  1. 104,009 people. 22.2% under 18.
  2. It's an average of ~1.23% per year (22.2/18).
  3. Ages 0 - 11 is 12 years
  4. 1.23% of 104,009 = 1282.78 (truncated & rounded here for simplicity)
  5. 1282.78 * 12 = 15,393.332

Estimate 2: This estimate is based upon 2019 census data estimates by age group

  1. 104,009 people. 5,077 under 5. 7,714 age 5-9. 6,343 age 10-14.
  2. Take 2/5ths of the 10-14 range to count ages 10 & 11: 2/5 * 6,343 = 2,537.2 (round down to 2537)
  3. Add up the 3 population counts: 5,077 + 7,714 + 2,537 = 15,328

Economic / Lifestyle costs & medical professionals don't deserve the risk

I don't have sources to cite for that. But there were 2,911 people in home isolation on September 24th. And for 7 weeks in a row, we had over 25 hospitalized COVID patients. An open-source dataset is available on gitlab, prepared by me

  • This page written by Reed Sutman