Thread by @shayshinecastle

First up is Lexi Nolen from BoCo Public Health.

Things are looking even better than last month. Positive cases continue to decline: www-static.bouldercolorado.gov/docs/BCPH_COVI…

In fact, new cases in BoCo are almost as low as the very beginning of the pandemic.

That's because of our extremely high vaccination rate: 67% for the 12+ population. Every age group is above 50%.

However, digging into racial/ethnic data, there are some groups below 50%.

Lowest (22%) is Hispanic kids age 12-19, followed by Hispanic 20-20 y.o. (27%)

Black, Asian and multi-racial youth also with lower vaccination rates than young white residents.

Nolen: We are seeing cases continue to decline, and we expect to continue down this pathway.

Yates q: Many of the 20-29 y.o., those tend to be CU students. Are they residents here or elsewhere, which might make that vaccination rate artificially low, bc they're not even here?

Nolen: Yes, we think so. Vaccination is often tied to their permanent address.

Reminder: They will have to be vaccinated before they return to CU.

Nolen: We'll be able to catch a lot of those students (in the data) as they come back to Boulder in the fall.

Weaver: It looks to me like younger Hispanic population is 25-30 points below the average vaccination rate for the county. Are we focusing on that population, "which seems to be falling pretty far behind?"

Nolen: Yes. What we are finding is we need to keep providing extra support. "It has less to do with hesitancy than it does making it as easy as we can and removing barriers."

Weaver: Why is it such a difference by age? The older Hispanic population isn't as far behind.
Nolen: We think it's about getting to clinics, sites during working hours. So we're expanding evenings and weekends to increase access.

And that is the end of the COVID update. These things are getting shorter, as I guess you'd expect.

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