Steve MartinJan 18, 2023
Charles Gaba

Here's the latest *county level* Red/Blue & Vaxx Level COVID death rate breakout, *including* BIVALENT doses:

#COVID19 #Bivalent #GetVaxxed

https://acasignups.net/23/01/17/january-update-covid-death-rates-partisan-lean-vaccination-rate-including-bivalent-booster

January Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate (including BIVALENT BOOSTER data)

(sigh) Last month I posted what I assumed would be my final update of the red/blue and vaccination-level COVID death rate breakouts, but apparently that wasn't meant to be. For one thing, the latest variant, XBB.1.5 (some are calling it "Kraken" but I don't think that's anything official) has reared its head in the northeast. For another, there's been a renewed interest (at least on Twitter, anyway) in an article at Vice Media about the topic. I'll be posting a second entry addressing that article, the study it cites, and some misinformation about the red/blue divide later on today, but first, let's take a look at where things stand as of mid-January. I already knew going into this update that the divides in Red/Blue COVID death rates and likely as well as in Vaccination Rate COVID death rates have shrunk over the past few months, for several reasons: First, the overall COVID death rate has dropped dramatically since the summer (which is obviously a good thing); it's been averaging between 300 - 400 per day since mid-October. The other reason is not good news: Hardly anyone seems to be masking up anymore regardless of partisan lean, and the vaccination rate of the bivalent booster shot has been anemic for the most part...again, pretty much regardless of other factors.

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Jan 18, 2023 at 3:00amWeb
Show threadCharles GabaJan 18, 2023

Primary Dose Vaxxes: Since 5/01/21, the COVID death rate has run 2.87x higher in the least-vaccinated decile of the U.S. than the most-vaccinated decile.

This is actually a slightly *higher* ratio than a month ago.

Show threadCharles GabaJan 18, 2023
Partisan Gap since the primary vaxxes: Since 5/01/21, the COVID death rate has run 2.77x higher in the reddest decile of the U.S. than the bluest decile. This is down slightly from a month ago.
Show threadCharles GabaJan 18, 2023
BIVALENT Dose Vaxxes: Since 9/01/22, the COVID death rate has only run 27% higher in the least-vaccinated decile of the U.S. than the most-vaccinated decile. Still a trend but not nearly as strong of one, and the the 3rd & 4th brackets don't match the trend:
Show threadCharles GabaJan 18, 2023

Partisan Gap since the BIVALENT vaxxes: Since 9/01/22, the COVID death rate has run 1.63x higher in the reddest decile of the U.S. than the bluest decile. This is down from 1.84x higher a month ago.

Here the trend is still pretty solid, although the 2nd bracket is a big outlier.

Show threadgeerueJan 18, 2023

@charlesgaba

Are there states that are no longer reporting Covid deaths? I thought FL stopped reporting a long time ago.

Show threadCharles GabaJan 18, 2023
@geerue I think FL stopped updating their public facing dashboard, but the White House COVID response team still gathers county-level data directly and posts an updated report every Thursday.
Show threadSteven T. DennisJan 18, 2023
@charlesgaba At some point do we end up in a lack of reporting issue
Show threadCharles GabaJan 19, 2023
@steventdennis I'm sure that'll be an issue at some point...several states have stopped reporting regularly at the county level already; many more only report once a week/etc. I think Johns Hopkins University data folks actually contact individual county health departments in some cases to get their data.
Show threadCharles GabaJan 19, 2023
@steventdennis Now, if you're talking about COVID deaths not even being *categorized* as COVID, that's been a problem all along; actual COVID deaths are estimated to be around ~30% higher than the official data nationally.
Show threadCharles GabaJan 19, 2023
@steventdennis Speaking of which: https://acasignups.net/22/05/09/exclusive-non-covid-excess-death-rates-ran-21x-higher-reddest-counties-bluest-2021
EXCLUSIVE: "Non-COVID" excess death rates ran 21x higher in reddest counties than bluest in 2021

Joint post by Charles Gaba & Andrew Stokes As noted a couple of weeks ago, I've decided to ease up on my obsessive COVID vaccination & death rate tracking. I'm not abandoning it entirely, mind you; I'm just dropping the updates from weekly to monthly. There's two reasons for this: First, the weekly updates have been monopolizing my time & energy, making me fall behind on a whole mess of other important healthcare policy stuff; after all, this is ACASignups.net not COVIDTracker.net. Secondly, I think it's fair to say that after meticulously tracking the data for nearly two years (in the case of COVID deaths) or one year (in the case of vaccination rates), I've more than made my point. However, there's one other important factor which I haven't delved into...because I never had access to the data, at least not at the county level: Excess deaths. For this, I've enlisted the assistance of Andrew Stokes, Asst. Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health, to the point that I'm giving him co-author credit for this entry. As many others have noted, the actual COVID death toll, both here in the United States and around the world, is almost certainly considerably higher than the official numbers which have been reported.

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