I wish more people in NC would chose to get one of the three safe and effective vaccines. Unfortunately, it is not happening fast enough. Despite all of my past criticism of Gov. Cooper,I do believe he set very reasonable and clear targets for reopening. His targets are sound and based on the results of data we are seeing from other parts of the world.
For example, in Israel and the UK, there is clear data that an inflection point can be reached when 50% of the population or 67 to 70% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccines. In these countries, where they have achieved these vaccination levels, they have seen case numbers, hospitalizations, and deaths drop drastically. In the case of the UK, these numbers are now at the level of yearly flu. I have consistently said when we reach levels of the flu, in cases and hospitalizations, we should open up.
Why is this happening? It is not due to seasonality. It is not due to the virus just giving up. It is due to "herd immunity." We know there are two ways to develop herd immunity - through past infection and through vaccination. Given the levels of past infection in the population, vaccinating 2/3 of the adult population with at least one dose, combined with the population with past infection, moves us to the levels of protection needed to achieve herd immunity.
In some states and locals, they are very close to achieving these vaccination levels. In California for example, they are expected to reach head immunity by mid-June. In San Francisco, they have now given at least one dose to 72% of their population and as a result, they have seen cases and hospitalizations reach the same levels as the flu.
In NC, our hospitalizations remain too high. We have been stuck at a little more than 1,000 total people hospitalized a day and are still admitting more than 100 people each day to the hospital from complications of Covid. While daily cases are down some, they still are averaging over 1,500 per day. Due to lags in the data, it is harder to report the average number of deaths each day, but they remain significantly higher than in those states and countries I mentioned previously. By my rough estimation, we are seeing between 7 to 10 deaths daily from people infected with Covid. The vaccines have definitely caused a drop in the number of people hospitalized who are aged 65+ and their hospitalization rates are more inline with the other age groups.
If more people continue to get vaccinated, we will eventually get the key statistics to the levels of flu and likely, even lower. To do this, we need more people to get vaccinated. The chart below shows how we are doing in NC with regards to the goal of having at least 2/3 of the adult population receive one dose. Currently, NC needs approximately 1.3M additional people to get at least one dose of the vaccines to reach this target. At the current rates, it will be August before we achieve these levels and the governor lifts the mandates on masking and full occupancy at restaurants and indoor/outdoor sporting events.
