Opinion | Will We Struggle to Reach Herd Immunity? - The New York Times - 0 views
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Consider a slice of Florida’s seniors, ages 65 to 74, who have been eligible for vaccination for four months. Almost all seniors in the state’s wealthiest county, St. Johns, have been vaccinated. (The numbers may be inflated because of seasonal residents, or snowbirds, who aren’t necessarily counted as part of the county’s population but are still counted among people getting vaccinated there.) But the first county west of St. Johns is one of the state’s poorest: Putnam, where the median annual income is about $35,000. Only half of the county’s residents ages 65 to 74 have been vaccinated.
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When eligibility is expanded in other states, vaccinations are expected to surge among the wealthiest Americans and lag among the poorest. At the rates that Florida’s poorer counties are vaccinating people ages 65 to 74, it will take months for the rest of the state’s seniors to catch up with higher-income Floridians.
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Data published by Idaho reveals how the current vaccination efforts are reaching a plateau in poorer parts of the state. The poorest 25 percent of ZIP codes in the state are seeing vaccination rates stalling below 70 percent for people ages 65 to 74.
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Logistical hurdles and missteps could drive slower vaccination campaigns. But states may also be falling behind because of high levels of vaccine hesitancy. If that's the case, it will take more than just opening up eligibility to get the country to levels of vaccination that can reach herd immunity — when roughly 70 percent of people are vaccinated, making it too difficult for the virus to spread.