Graph of the Day: U.S. Covid vaccination rates and risk levels by county, 4 August 2021
4 August 2021 (Desdemona Despair) – Republican election strategy became clearer today, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed exponential increases in Covid infection rates on immigrants at the Southern border, deflecting blame from the unvaccinated populations in Florida and other Republican-controlled states.
This ridiculous idea is easily tested by examining the spatial distribution of case rates. If DeSantis were correct, we’d expect to see the highest infection rates in counties near the border with Mexico. Instead, we see some of the lowest case rates there. The highest case rates are in Louisiana and the east coast of Florida, so unless the immigrants are swimming across the Gulf of Mexico and arriving on cruise ships from the Atlantic Ocean, something else is responsible for the spike in cases.
When we compare vaccination rates with case rates, it’s obvious that Democrats and immigrants aren’t to blame: the deadly spike is caused by the appallingly low vaccination rates in the Red states. But because campaign fundraising on vaccine hesitancy is so lucrative for the death cult, there may be no limit to the acceptable number of dead voters.
Even as Florida case rates blew past the previous records, the DeSantis campaign continued its antiscience fundraising by selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” T-shirts on the campaign web site. One wonders what kind of catastrophe would be required for DeSantis to decide that he should stop profiting from it.
