Thread by @ashishkjha

There's a group of pesky unvaccinated ruffians I want to discuss

You know -- no lottery tickets will get them vaccinated

They are recalcitrant

I have one of them in my house

Yes, the under 12

How best to protect them?

Empirical data can show us the way

Short thread

Despite stark differences in vaccinations by state,

In Louisiana, 0% of kids under 12 vaccinated
In Florida, 0% of kids under 12 vaccinated

Even in high vax Massachusetts

0% of kids under 12 vaccinated

So if we're in a pandemic of the unvaccinated, are these kids in trouble?

Actually, while vaccination rates for kids under 12 are identical (0%) across states,

Infection numbers are not

In Massachusetts, about 250 kids under 10 years of age infected last week

In Florida, it was about 9,000

In Louisiana, it was about 1600

3/5

Adjusted for population

Florida had 12X as many kids infected as Massachusetts last week

And Louisiana? About 10X

So what's going on?

None of these kids are vaccinated!

So why are infection rates so much lower in MA?

Right, because kids are protected by adults

4/5

Kid infection numbers driven largely by infection numbers in adults

In Israel, we saw that as adults got vaccinated

Infection numbers in kids plummeted

So how do I best protect my 9 year-old unvaccinated kid?

By making sure all adults around him are vaxxed

5/6

So when you hear we have a pandemic of the unvaccinated

Yes that includes kids

But largely only in unvaccinated communities

Very few kids in highly vaccinated places are getting sick

So if you want to protect unvaccinated kids

Make sure everyone around them has the shot

Fin