NYT Blames Ocean county Low vaccination rate on Politics & Religion

The New York Times on Friday wrote an article about the low vaccination rates in Ocean county, NJ the author senior writer David Leonhardt has written about “Red Covid,” referring to people living in Republican areas  that die in higher numbers than those in Blue covid areas that are democratic. He blamed the high death rate in Ocean county due to the low vaccination rate because of politics and followed up on Twitter blaming it also on religion  "A secondary factor explaining Ocean County’s low vaccination rate is religion". Local journalist on social media called him out with facts about Lakewood that he simply did not mention, pointing to the high vaccination rate among the 65+ population, 92% are vaccinated. 20% of the population are under 5 years old and over 50% of Lakewood's population are younger than 18 years old, as a reason for the low vaccination rate here. Another point made is most people who did not vaccinate did not blame it on religion rather the town was hit hard initially giving high natural immunity to many.

 A year ago March 1st 2021 the death count in Lakewood was at 278 that was the same time as the vaccine rollout now it is at 365. most of those deaths did not happen in the orthodox community. In The latest Omicron wave to his the USA when hospitals were full and over run, the Lakewood community who had many covid cases  sent only few patients to the hospital, that is with the NYT low vaccination rates.

The deaths in Lakewood per the OCHD is currently at 365. In the first wave of covid  Lakewood was hit very hard with about 80 -100 deaths in the orthodox community with another 25 deaths in the 2nd wave the rest were in the Hispanic or senior communities, again nothing to do with religion. Other towns in Ocean county with much smaller populations than Lakewood had a higher death rate obviously due to the older populations.   

 Manchester  440

Berkley 360

Brick 347

Toms River 418

Jackson 139

Lakewood 365 

Tweet

A postscript: The newsletter focuses on Ocean County, which is New Jersey’s most Republican county and one of the least vaccinated in the Northeast. Its total Covid death rate has been higher than Mississippi’s and higher than that of every country in the world except Peru.

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) February 18, 2022

I would disagree with this. Of the hundreds of people in Lakewood I asked over the last 12 months why they wouldn't get vaccinated, almost no one cited "religion" as a factor. https://t.co/XFQznPazYr

— Shlomo Schorr (@OneJerseySchorr) February 18, 2022

 

Article from the New York Times

Ocean County, in central New Jersey, is a mixture of beach towns like Barnegat Light and exurban towns like Toms River and Lakewood. Household income in the county exceeds the U.S. average.

Yet Ocean County is among the least vaccinated places in the Northeast. Only 53 percent of residents have received at least two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine (or one dose of Johnson & Johnson). Only 26 percent have received a booster shot.

The large number of unvaccinated residents in Ocean County has led to a horrific amount of Covid illness and death. Nearly one out of every 200 residents has died from the virus. That is worse than the toll in Mississippi, the U.S. state with the largest amount of Covid death per capita, and worse than in any country except for Peru.

What explains the vaccine skepticism in Ocean County? Politics, above all. The county is heavily Republican. Donald Trump won it by almost 30 percentage points in 2020, and many Republicans — including those who are older than 65 and vulnerable to severe Covid illness — are skeptical of the vaccines.

This partisan divide has led to the “red Covid” phenomenon that I have described in previous newsletters. Today, I have an update.

Blue, then red

First, some background: In the pandemic’s initial months, Covid cases and deaths were higher in Democratic areas, probably because they are home to several major international airports. The virus entered this country on the West Coast and in the Northeast. But it didn’t stay there. By the end of Covid’s first year in the U.S., the virus had swept across the country, and there was no significant partisan divide in deaths.

Only after the vaccines became widely available, in early 2021 — and liberals were much more willing to get shots than conservatives — did Covid become a disproportionately Republican illness. By the summer of 2021, the gap was soaring:

As the chart makes clear, the toll has been even worse in counties where Trump won by a landslide than in counties that he won narrowly.

This phenomenon is an example of how the country’s political polarization has warped people’s thinking, even when their personal safety is at stake. It is a tragedy — and a preventable one, too.

A new study by four Harvard epidemiologists estimates that 135,000 unvaccinated Americans died unnecessarily in the last six months of last year. The Texas Tribune recently profiled a young unvaccinated couple: She spent 139 days in intensive care; he asked, “Was this my fault?” They have both since been vaccinated.

Natural immunity

There is one big new development. When I last wrote about red Covid, in November, I told you that the month-to-month partisan mortality gap might be peaking, for two main reasons.

One, the availability of highly effective post-infection treatments, like Pfizer’s Paxlovid, has been expanding; if they reduce deaths, the drop may be steepest where the toll is highest. Two, red America has probably built up more natural immunity to Covid — from prior infections — than blue America, given that many Democrats have tried harder to avoid getting the virus.

Sure enough, the partisan gap in Covid deaths is no longer growing as fast it had been, as you can see from the new closeness among these lines:

Credit...In Trump and Biden counties, one candidate won at least 70 percent of the vote; in swing counties, both won at least 45 percent.

During the Omicron wave, deaths have risen less in red counties than in blue or purple counties. The most likely explanation seems to be that the number of Trump voters vulnerable to severe illness — which was still very large earlier last year — has declined, because more of them have built up some immunity to Covid from a previous infection.

But don’t make the mistake of confusing a gap that’s no longer growing as rapidly as it was with a gap that is shrinking. The gap between red and blue America — in terms of cumulative Covid deaths — is still growing. The red line in that second chart is higher than the blue line, which is a sign that more Republicans than Democrats or independents have needlessly died of Covid in recent weeks.

Another point to remember: Even in deeply blue counties, an outsize number of deaths are occurring among people who are unvaccinated or unboosted. The vaccines offer incredible protection from a deadly virus, yet many Americans have chosen to leave themselves exposed.