Does social distancing somehow increase the risk of getting the Delta? I did some searching and couldn't find anything to back that up, if a certain state was better at social distancing the first time it seems like they probably would be for the next one too
I meant to point out that if a region has kept COVID conflagrations from happening, via social distancing efforts, they will have accumulated less natural immunity, thus they are riper for conflagrations in the future. The way I predict "who's next" in the U.S. is to look at which states are at the bottom in terms of infections per capita. Those are the ripest. The technique has worked very well for me thus far.
Calling this entire argument out as non-factual. Oregon, Washington and Hawaii all are leading the nation in vaccination rate per capita. The idea of natural immunity is unfounded. You might have immunity BECAUSE you already had COVID.
The idea that "infections per capita" trumps vaccination rate when determining future infections rates is just ridiculous.
And claiming this is a hit job on a red state is just as foolish. Arkansas is one of the laggards in vaccinations, and the Delta variant is showing why they're paying the price.
(1) If "natural" immunity is the wrong term, I mean to say "acquired", i.e. had the disease.
(2) Yes, you're right that vaccinations also lower the amount of "dry wood" available. I try to add those into my estimates but it made too long a description so I left it out. But until 3 months ago it was only a small factor.
(3) More evidence that it's a hit job: the actual breakdown of current COVID cases is not red states vs. blue. It is urban vs. rural...as you'd expect on the upswing of a new conflagration. But the high-rates map is hugely correlated with urbanization, whereas "Trump country" is barely affected yet. That would be the real story, if there was one, which there is not. Have you seen stories on the crises in NYC and Long Island? Maybe I've missed them.
Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii all have rising cases starting a month ago. But a month in, deaths haven't gone up. They're in single digits. You don't have to wonder what kind of effect delta will have on those states, you can look at the data.
Arkansas does have rising deaths. Florida does have rising deaths. The distinction between the attitudes (and the results) of those states and the "blue" states you mentioned isn't an invention by CNN. (Though CNN may be happy to profit from reporting on that distinction.)
