📣📣 It's been about 6 weeks *and* I've updated everything with the official 2020 Census data, so it's time once again to look at the county-level vaccination rates for each individual state!
First up...Alabama:
ALASKA is, as always, kind of all over the place with no discernible pattern to speak of:
ARIZONA. I've actually decided to start scrapping the "herd immunity threshold" line since a) we don't know how high it actually is and b) it clutters up the graphs. Let's just say every county SHOULD be as close to the top as possible.
ARKANSAS. Yes, Miller County has only vaccinated 10% of their population. They have 42,600 residents and gave Trump 72% of their vote.
CALIFORNIA. R^2: 0.7324. Amazing.
COLORADO. R^2: 0.767. Even more amazing.
CONNECTICUT, DELAWARE, DC, HAWAII & RHODE ISLAND (none of these have more than 8 counties to begin with so it doesn't make much sense to look for a pattern, but I've included them for completeness anyway):
FLORIDA. Sumter County is, of course, home to The Villages, the massive retirement community where Trump held rallies last summer.
Miami-Dade is 66% vaxxed yet still has high case rates. I have no idea about the *death* rate there recently, however; FL isn't breaking that out.
GEORGIA.
IDAHO.
ILLINOIS.
INDIANA.
IOWA:
KANSAS:
KENTUCKY:
LOUISIANA.
I still don't know what the deal is with West Feliciana, unless it's the Louisiana State Prison...in which case that's a GOOD thing as it means the prisoners are highly vaccinated?
Have to take a break for awhile, will get the rest of the states this evening. Meanwhile, if you find my work useful you can support it here, thanks! ACASignups.net/support
MAINE.
R^2: 0.8 even.
MARYLAND.
MASSACHUSETTS. I've had to revise Dukes & Nantucket about 4 times based on conflicting vaccination data sources, but I think I have it right now.
MICHIGAN.
MINNESOTA:
MISSISSIPPI:
MISSOURI:
MONTANA:
NEBRASKA:
NEVADA:
NEW HAMPSHIRE:
NEW JERSEY.
Worth noting that the state with the highest cumulative COVID death rate has the *weakest* partisan lean effect of all 50 states.
(No, Florida still hasn't surpassed New Jersey on this front unless they're hiding over 21,000 deaths...which I admit is conceivable)
NEW MEXICO. R^2: 0.7593.
Los Alamos is, of course, home to the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
NEW YORK.
Brooklyn & The Bronx need to get their butts in gear.
NORTH CAROLINA.
Here we run into a data-tracking headache (h/t @DavidNir for calling my attention to it): The @CDCgov data claims to be 96.3% complete for NC...but the @NCDHHS claims that Martin County, which CDC says is nearly 80% vaxxed, is actually only 42%.
If NC only had 1 county which was significantly off, I'd just take note of it going forward and move on, but there's a BUNCH of NC counties where the CDC & NCDHHS show differences of > 5%...and several which are over 10% off.
SOUTH DAKOTA, currently in the midst of an ugly post-#SturgisRally COVID spike.
Yes, according to the CDC data, McPherson County, SD is less than 10% vaccinated.
(Sturgis is in Meade County, which is buried in the middle of that blob in the red section)
TENNESSEE.
TEXAS.
Texas has a whopping 254 counties, ranging from Harris County's 4.7 million residents to tiny Loving County, which has a whopping 64 residents according to the official 2020 Census.
I have no idea what the deal is with Hudspeth County; if someone knows please clue me in.
UTAH. R^2: 0.7493.
VERMONT.
VIRGINIA.
VA is kind of all over the place, possibly because they have this weird hybrid system in which half the counties are actually "independent cities" which are also considered counties.
Note that @CovidActNow doesn't list Manassas City or Manassas Park for some reason.
WASHINGTON STATE.
WEST VIRGINIA.
WV started out boasting the highest vaccination rate last spring when it was restricted to seniors...but quickly fell behind once the vaccines became available to everyone.
WISCONSIN.
Before I wrap things up, a reminder that if you find my work useful & want to support it, you can do so here, thanks! acasignups.net/support
Annnnnnd here's WYOMING, the smallest state in the country, with an R^2 correlation of an eye-popping 0.8838:
I've personally renamed Teton County, Wyoming "Thor's Twins" after this famous scene from The Hunt for Red October.
...the vast majority of this discrepancy happened in districts/counties which were heavily red to begin with, which is why the MAGA COVID Death Cult factor only ended up making a decisive difference in exactly one statewide race: Arizona Attorney General: acasignups.net/22/12/29/updat…
At the House district level it didn't make a decisive difference in any races at all. To understand why, let's look at two extreme examples...
People have started asking why I'm still pushing fundraising for Dems just 5 days before Election Day. All the ad time has been purchased & the lit pieces printed & mailed out already, right?
There's several reasons: 1/
1. For state legislative races in particular, a last-minute cash infusion of even $50 can mean an extra few pizzas for tired & hungry canvassers or an extra burner phone for phone banking.
2. After the polls close, there's going to no doubt be some races which require recounts...which may or may not have to be paid for by the campaign requesting it, depending on the state and the margin. That's gonna cost money.
🧵THE DEAD POOL: Since @MikeJohnson and @JDVance are promising to Concentrate folks w/pre-existing conditions into separate Camps, let's talk about that. 1/ acasignups.net/24/10/04/dead-…
Let's go back to the pre-ACA healthcare landscape. This is what it looked like in 2012...*before* the ACA's major provisions went into effect.
Half the US had employer coverage. Another third had Medicare or Medicaid. ~11M had "individual" insurance; ~48M had nothing at all. 2/
The ACA had 2 main goals:
1. Reduce the number of uninsured Americans as much as possible by making coverage more affordable & accessible;
2. Provide protections from insurance industry abuses, *especially* for the individual market where the abuses were the most blatant. 3/
AGAIN: This graph is the single most important explainer of how risk pools work & the dangers of separating people out into risk pools based on their CURRENT health.
5% of the population racks up over 50% of total healthcare spending.
If you throw them under the bus, healthcare costs for the other 95% of the population drops in half, except for one small problem even IF you don't care about Grandma or Cousin Fred Who Was Just Diagnosed With Cancer:
You never know when YOU'RE gonna become Cousin Fred.