Week in Review: September 13, 2021

And, a note about blue/red states and evangelicals

Can y’all believe it’s the middle of September already? Sometimes, 2021 feels like it’s crawling by and other times it’s flying. September feels like it’s flying to me - perhaps it’s the start of school that does that.

OVERVIEW

On average, the US is averaging over 140,000 new cases per day. So don’t get too excited when you hear that Delta may have peaked. It may have - but, with schools and the Labor Day weekend delays in reporting, more people being in large groups, etc - I’m wondering what we will see in a few weeks. Hospitalizations have gone slightly down - but, MANY hospitals are at capacity or very near capacity. So a slight dip helps but it will take more decreases to really ease the burden on our healthcare workers. (A HUGE shout out to you healthcare workers. There are 1,000s of us who are doing what we can to help.) Unfortunately, deaths continue to go up. This, sadly, is expected since we know deaths come a few weeks after cases spike. On average, the US is having 1,500 deaths per day - the most we have seen since the awful winter surge. This just goes to show you how scary Delta is in severity and deaths. (Data source here)

WHERE IS THE HIGHEST RISK?

Well, at this point it’s the whole country. Tennessee, you lead the nation in terms of new cases and risk levels. This map below scares me. We are used to the map being red by now. But the deep maroon colors (and they need to add another color beyond that too) are extremely high risk levels for these counties. The moderate risk level (the yellow color) should have been the time where we do all we can to mitigate Delta (vaccine and mask mandates, distancing protocols, playing-by-the-pandemic-playbook). At this point, we know what to do. So, the deep maroon colors are VERY high risk. If you’re in these areas and states, be cautious, friends. Be vigilant about wearing those masks, saying no to large gatherings (including and especially indoor, unmasked churches services and football games), and pulling back general activities.

DEATHS

I sorted the table below by deaths per 100,000 population. On average, the US has 0.50 per 100,000. But notice the top 10 states that are above this average. MS, FL, LA, SC, TX, AR, GA, AL, OK - ALL southern states. And the deaths per 100,000 in these states are really high. Notice ALL the states have <50% vaccination rates (with the exception of FL being 55%). Vaccines prevent deaths, friends. For our friends, families, communities. The data always shows the story within the story. Deaths in these southern states are really high where Delta can largely run rampant in unvaccinated communities, unmasked schools, mask-mandates bans. Why do I focus so much on deaths? Because over 95% of deaths from COVID are preventable through vaccines. This scenario below could be (and still can be) prevented if we can drive up vaccination rates.

COVID AND POLITICS

The Washington Post wrote a really nice analytic article this week about the “inescapable overlap of pandemic and politics.” This should come as no surprise to any of us and I’ve (along with many others) have written about the interweaving of politics and the pandemic for about a year now. We have heard and continue to hear strong(and sneaky) anti-mask and anti-vaccine sentiments from far-right Republican groups and mainstream Republican groups - including peddling of both mis- and dis-information. We know that vaccination rates among Republicans are much lower and vaccination rates in Republican states are much lower too. So, at this point, it’s irresponsible to not recognize and come to terms with the politics of the pandemic. The rhetoric around masking and vaccines and loving-our-neighbors a year ago (in 2020 with Republicans) mattered greatly. It’s naive to think that nothing could have been to change where we are now. This all could have looked much different. Goodness, I really wish we could all come to terms with that and let there be not only accountability, but also reversing course, driving up vaccination rates, and finally getting out of this pandemic.

However, the data shows the story. If you can read the Washington Post article behind the paywall, I would encourage you to. If you can’t, let me give you the highlights.

• Across the nation, it’s “obvious that there’s an overlap of vaccination rates, party identity and pandemic outcomes that intertwines the discussion about the pandemic with partisan politics… “We see that red states are doing much worse relative to the country on the whole than are blue states.” - Reporter Philip Bump

• He added that “more deaths from the virus occur in places where there are more cases. There are more cases in places where vaccination rates are lower. Vaccination rates are lower in places that voted more heavily Republican in 2020.”

• The post reported that nearly 1 in 5 has died in Florida in this latest wave of Delta - accounting for 18% of the nation’s COVID deaths - the states only accounts for 6% of the nation’s population. We see this scenario play out in other Red states too (just go look at the table I included above).

• “Of the 23 states that have new case totals per capita higher than the nation over all, 21 voted for Donald Trump in November. Sixteen are among the 17 states that have the lowest rates of vaccination…Of the 18 states that have new death totals higher than the national average, 14 voted for Trump,” the Post reports.

THE BOTTOM LINE

I know this week in review will make some of you angry. “Why won’t you talk about high-vax versus low-vax states instead of blue vs red or Trump vs Biden? Why are you making this political?”. Because it’s all-related. It’s all political and has been. We have to come to terms with what happened in 2020 in terms of the pandemic party-line rhetoric, who did (and didn’t) love our neighbors, etc. We are seeing those reprecussions dig deeper in this pandemic still, sadly, in terms of deaths, conspiracy theories still abounding (take ivermectin as an example), and continued anti-masking/vaccinating. It’s all related. So we need to talk about it all - vax states, blue/red states, and yes, evangelical states. For those of you in the Christian evangelical space, you know that this also plays out in how churches talk about the pandemic - party lines have seeped in there too with Christian nationalism. You can read more on that here.

Correlation is not causation. BUT, correlation shows that something is going on. It shows a story, relationships, and interweaving of thoughts/ideas/actions. Then that affects the cause-and-effect of COVID causing hospitalizations and deaths. It’s all related.

Stay safe this week, friends. Wear your masks. Continue to advocate for your communities and families and schools. Stay strong.

-FNE

***If you are new to the FNE community, welcome welcome welcome! There are quite a few new people here at Substack and on FB. I am an epidemiologist who often writes about my Christian faith and experiences as a pastor’s wife. However, those faith writings (like my last Substack posts on ‘To the Weary’) are not intended to come across as proselytizing. That’s not my intention at all. I just know that my own community of evangelical Christians in the south (although I don’t really consider myself evangelical anymore) are the ones that need to hear a lot of the data. So, those are my motivations for writing about faith - not to proselytize. There are also a lot of disenfranchised and church-homeless evangelical Christians out there who have left churches (or frankly, need to leave churches that have not been loving their neighbors and communities). So, I often write to them as well. We left a church in the pandemic too and you can read about some of that story here. I hope it gives some of you courage.