Published: 8/9/2021 7:31:11 PM
The most important number to come out recently regarding COVID-19 in New Hampshire is 99 percent.
As reported by the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, that’s the percentage of people in New Hampshire who came down with COVID-19 through late June who had not – repeat, not – been vaccinated. One percent of the 33,703 reported cases from Feb. 1 through June 23 were in people who had been fully vaccinated, the center said.
So if you’re hesitating about getting the jab because you’re afraid of coming down with a “breakthrough” case, you should be 49 times as worried about coming down with an “unprotected” case while you dither.
The center reported that over the same period, five New Hampshire residents who had been fully vaccinated died from COVID-19, compared to 236 who died after not getting vaccinated. If I am offered 236-to-5 odds on a bet, I know which side I’ll take.
There is a caveat: The data ended in late June, before the contagious Delta variant was so prominent. National numbers indicate that the Delta variant is associated with more breakthrough cases than other strains, so the percentage may have changed. But not much; the Delta variant isn’t causing a big number of breakthrough cases and, importantly, they tend to be mild cases.
In other words, when the Delta variant encounters an immune system that has been strengthened via vaccines, even if it manages to overcome the defenses to produce symptoms, it can’t do the sort of damage that it does in a person whose immune system hasn’t been upgraded. Being vaccinated is like wearing a seat belt: Even when it doesn’t prevent a crash it keeps you from getting hurt as badly.
All this is relevant because COVID-19 is returning to the Granite State much more quickly than we had hoped. The fall surge is happening in mid-summer: New cases are rising, it’s becoming common again to wear masks in public (ugh), and the specter of future lockdowns is rearing its ugly head.
As I write this, six of New Hampshire’s 10 counties have what the Centers for Disease Control says is a “substantial level” of COVID-19 transmission, meaning that masks should be worn indoors. “Substantial” refers to at least 50 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days.
Merrimack County isn’t on that list, although by the time you read these words it might be. You can keep up with the county status at the CDC’s data tracker: covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker.
I have, much to my dismay, gotten back in the habit of grabbing a mask when I leave the house and putting it on when I enter a public building even though I have been fully vaccinated for months.
I almost certainly won’t get sick if I inhale a floating SARS-CoV2 virus but I might, and I also might exhale it again and infect somebody else. And the virus might mutate inside that other person and become an even worse variant. Wearing a mask from time to time isn’t too much to ask to help prevent that from happening.
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How are we doing on vaccinations? We have flattened the wrong curve.
In the past month, fewer than 5,000 people have been added to the state’s tally of fully vaccinated folks, which is much less than 1% of the eligible (over 12 years old) population. We might not get to 60% vaccination of the total population at this rate, and we certainly won’t get to any level of semi-herd immunity which, due to the more contagious Delta variant, is something like 80%.
What’s the trend on the spread and impact of the disease? Getting worse.
The number of new cases reported each day has roughly quadrupled in July, from about 25 to about 100.
The increase isn’t being reflected in deaths, which average well under one a day, or hospitalizations, which have edged up but remain pretty low. That is presumably a reflection of our vaccination rate, which is higher than in most of the country even though it’s less than we need.
The optimistic take is that vaccines mean this autumn won’t take as big a toll as we saw last winter even if case numbers continue to spike. I choose to be optimistic – but not so optimistic that I won’t wear a mask.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
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