Thread by @BillHanage

Some outlets are trumpeting the currently small number of cases in Florida as vindicating the state’s covid-curious approach to the pandemic. The reality is different, and uncomfortable for undervaccinated communities here and around the world as the nights draw in 1/n

FL was always high risk for high mortality, if only because of the age profile of the population. However once effective vaccines were widely available in early 2021, there were reasons to think that bullet had been dodged. That’s not how things turned out 2/n

A combination of lax mitigation and poor vaccination in older age groups led to a large surge of infections with the Delta variant, which is both more transmissible and likely to lead to hospitalization 3/n

This graphic illustrates the relationship between vaccinations in older folks and hospitalizations in mid sept using data compiled by Alex Washburne. The lines lead to where hospitalizations were the month previously. And the size of the points is time since Delta arrived 4/n

And this GIF (also Alex) shows increasing % of vaccination over time for each state against hospitalizations. Guess which point is FL? 5/n

What are the consequences? Well there is a clear late surge in FL deaths. This is the cumulative mortality. There were more than 24,000 since May 1st. In other words since vaccines. These were overwhelmingly in unvaccinated people and hence the great majority were preventable 6/n

Compare with MA, hit hard early on. Here close to 50% of deaths happened by the start of July 2020. A total of A little more than 8000 lives lost in a few months. But MA is smaller than FL 7/n

Up to July 2020, the pandemic mortality in MA was 1 out of every 855 dead to the virus. *Since* May 1st 2021 the equivalent figure for FL 1 out of every 880 (MA 1169/million, FL since 05/01/21 1137/million all figures from worldometers.info/coronavirus/co…) 8/n

In other words FL has endured a pandemic summer SINCE VACCINES WERE AVAILABLE that was comparable to the earliest surge of the pandemic when we had nothing to protect us 9/n

Is it over? Well undoubtedly FL has more immunity, as well as death, than it did. That will be contributing to low case numbers. But they won’t necessarily stay this low forever. Cases there have plateaued and some of the decline was likely due to changed contact patterns 10/n

There was a hiatus around this time in 2020. Before an uptick around the holidays which echoed that in northern states (though not as large, relatively speaking) peaking in early Jan 11/n

But in well vaccinated locations with a lot of prior infection like the North East US or the UK, transmission is continuing even now. Vaccines in both places are mercifully blunting the consequences, but they haven’t eliminated the virus 12/n

(in passing this is one of the reasons why low lift interventions to limit transmission are a complement to vaccination as immunity accumulates and protection grows. They won't be necessary forever, but they will help avoid large spikes now) 13/n

The message – there are plenty communities with vaccination rates as poor as FL’s before delta. To say nothing of the world. Florida's dreadful pandemic summer should be a warning. Vaccines save lives, and the virus is not done with us yet 14/end