Darwin's Theory at Work in In Undervaccinated Arkansas

The Delta variant of Coronavirus is creating two Americas: one comprised of those who embraced medical science and got vaccinated and the other group comprised of those who embraced ignorance, conspiracy theories and lies, care nothing about endangering others (and themselves), and subscribe to Republicans' opposition to anything the Biden administration is pushing.  In the first group, life is continuing to move towards normalcy.   In the other group Covid infections are soar and by all reports almost all Covid deaths now are among the unvaccinated.  The embrace of ignorance is worn like a badge of honor by those on the political right and it is literally killing people.  At the risk of sounding cruel, it is difficult to feel sorry for those who have deliberately brought sickness and death on themselves.  With accurate information readily available if one bothers to look for it, free vaccinations likewise available and endless warnings of the risks of not getting vaccinated, there really is no legitimate excuse for not being vaccinated.  Infections are increasing across the country, but red states are leading the way in soaring Covid infections (Florida has 20% of the new cases for the entire nation),  A piece in the New York Times looks at the disaster in Arkansas, a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates.  Here are excerpts:

Linda Marion, 68, a widow with chronic pulmonary disease, worried that a vaccination might actually trigger Covid-19 and kill her. Barbara Billigmeier, 74, an avid golfer who retired here from California, believed she did not need it because “I never get sick.”

Last week, all three were patients on 2 West, an overflow ward that is now largely devoted to treating Covid-19 at Baxter Regional Medical Center, the largest hospital in north-central Arkansas. Mrs. Billigmeier said the scariest part was that “you can’t breathe.”

Yet despite their ordeals, none of them changed their minds about getting vaccinated. “It’s just too new,” Mrs. Billigmeier said. “It is like an experiment.”

While much of the nation tiptoes toward normalcy, the coronavirus is again swamping hospitals in places like Mountain Home, a city of fewer than 13,000 people not far from the Missouri border. A principal reason, health officials say, is the emergence of the new, far more contagious variant called Delta, which now accounts for more than half of new infections in the United States.

The variant has highlighted a new divide in America, between communities with high vaccination rates, where it causes hardly a ripple, and those like Mountain Home that are undervaccinated, where it threatens to upend life all over again. Part of the country is breathing a sigh of relief; part is holding its breath.

Among the 25 counties with the sharpest increases in cases, all but one had vaccinated under 40 percent of residents, and 16 had vaccinated under 30 percent, a New York Times analysis found.

Overall, Arkansas ranks near the bottom of states in the share of population that is vaccinated. Only 44 percent of residents have received at least one shot.

“Boy, we’ve tried just about everything we can think of,” a retired National Guard colonel, Robert Ator, who runs the state’s vaccination effort, said in an interview. For about one in three residents, he said, “I don’t think there’s a thing in the world we could do to get them to get vaccinated.”

For that, the state is paying a price. Hospitalizations have quadrupled since mid-May. More than a third of patients are in intensive care. Deaths, a lagging indicator, are also expected to rise, health officials said.

Dr. Mark Williams, the dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, said the Delta variant was upending his projections for the pandemic. It is spreading through the state’s unvaccinated population “at a very fast rate,” he said, and threatens to strain the ability of hospitals to cope. “I would say we have definitely hit the alarming stage,” he said.

Mr. Ator, the vaccine coordinator, said door-knocking “would probably do more harm than good,” given residents’ suspicions of federal intentions.

Both said the Arkansas public had been saturated with vaccine promotions and incentives, including free lottery tickets, hunting and fishing licenses and stands offering shots at state parks and high school graduation ceremonies.

In April, the state legislature added yet another roadblock, making it essentially illegal for any state or local entity, including public hospitals, to require coronavirus vaccination as a condition of education or employment until two years after the Food and Drug Administration fully licenses a shot. That almost certainly means no such requirements can be issued until late in 2023.

When the pandemic hit, Baxter Regional became a vaccine distribution center and inoculated 5,500 people. But only half of its 1,800 staff members accepted shots, according to Jonny Harvey, its occupational health coordinator. By early June, demand had tapered off so much that the hospital was administering an average of one a day.

And there are other troubling signs.  A larger share of those who are now becoming infected, he said, need hospitalization. And once there, Dr. Steppe Mette, the chief executive of the Little Rock hospital, said, they appeared to need a higher level of care than those who were sickened by the original variant. That is despite the fact that they are younger. . . . some patients at the Little Rock hospital are in their 20s or 30s.

David Deutscher, 49, one of her patients for nearly a week, is no longer a holdout. . . . When he failed to improve with monoclonal antibody treatment, he said, “that was probably the most scared I have ever been.” He called a friend, the daughter of a medical researcher, from his hospital bed. “Please don’t let me die,” he said.

He said he never got vaccinated because he figured a mask would suffice. In the past 21 years, he has had the flu once.

“Once I started feeling better,” Mr. Deutscher said, “I got on the phone and I just starting calling everybody to tell them to go get that vaccine.” He did not even wait to be discharged. The coronavirus “is no joke,” he told his friends. Three of them got a shot.

All of this sickness and a growing number of deaths was so easily avoidable.