Five under-vaccinated clusters endanger the entire United States :: WRAL.com

Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield, CNN

CNN — New data analysis identified a population of unvaccinated people. Most of them are in the southern United States, vulnerable to a surge in Covid-19 cases, and can be a breeding ground for even more deadly Covid-19 variants.

An analysis by researchers at Georgetown University identified 30 clusters in low-vaccination and large-population counties. Five of these clusters are spread over a large area in the southeastern United States and a small part of the Midwest.

The five clusters are primarily part of eight states, starting east of Georgia and extending from west to Texas and north to south to Missouri. The cluster also includes parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, mostly composed of small counties, but also cities such as Montgomery, Alabama. Shreveport, Louisiana; Amarillo, Texas.

Most of these states are currently seeing an increase in cases of Covid-19.

Schweta Bansal, an associate professor of biology at Georgetown University, said: Bansal leads the US COVID-19 Vaccine Follow-up Project, which has been collecting data on US vaccine deployments since it began in December.

These vulnerable clusters put the entire United States and, to some extent, the world at risk of returning to 2020. This is because highly infected areas can become breeding grounds for Covid-19 variants and avoid Covid. 19 vaccines.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, CNN’s Medical Analyst and Professor of Medicine and Surgery at George Washington University, said:

Millions of unvaccinated people in the cluster

About one-third of Americans have never taken a Covid-19 shot. According to Georgetown’s analysis, these people are not evenly distributed throughout the United States.

Analyzing county immunization data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department of Health, Georgetown researchers found that vaccination rates were low and the population was large compared to the national average, with 30 across the United States. I found a cluster of counties.

The five most important clusters include more than 15 million people in total. Of these, only 27.9% are fully vaccinated, far lower than 47.6% nationwide.

County data is not without flaws. When someone is shot, their home county is to be recorded in state records, but the system is not always fully functional. In a Georgetown analysis, at least 90% of all vaccinations were recorded in the person’s home county, Bansal said.

In some cases, Georgetown data differs from CDC data because Bansar and her team were able to obtain additional data directly from the state health department.

Although the cluster contains fairly large cities, 92% of the counties within the cluster have a population of less than 100,000.

The federal government is working with churches and organizations such as YMCA to encourage Covid-19 vaccination in these areas, US surgeon president Dr. Vivek Murthy told CNN.

“These are extraordinary partners in reaching the community. [in rural areas] Access to medical care is not as easy as in urban areas. “

Clusters give the opportunity to mutate into viruses

The delta mutant, which currently accounts for more than half of the cases in the United States, is the latest in a long string of Covid-19 mutants that spread more easily and in some cases caused more serious illness.

Therefore, the cluster is very worrisome. Every time the virus spreads, you have the opportunity to learn how to mutate.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President’s Chief Medical Advisor to President Joe Biden, told CNN:

Delta variants have learned how to avoid the Covid-19 vaccine slightly, but they still provide excellent protection against severe illness and hospitalization.

The fear is that the following variants can outperform the vaccine more thoroughly and may cause problems even in some countries with high vaccination rates.

“So far, we’ve been lucky with vaccine-sensitive mutants, but the more we roll the dice, the more likely it is to be resistant,” Reiner said.

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