Estimates of catching the Delta variant came out a few days ago, at about 1:5000 if you are vaccinated. This is good news. If you are in a place where there is a lot of infection you have a higher chance of catching it. Right now in New York City, the numbers are down, so it's about a 1:10,000 chance. I don't know the chance of getting Covid-19 in the US if you are unvaccinated. Message me if you've seen recent numbers and of course it's variable, depending on how bad a flare any area is having.

There is also a paper tracking the risk of long covid in vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Vaccination is cutting the risk in one study by 50%. Having half the chance of being sick for months and possibly years sounds really compelling to me.

Some people seem to be avoiding the vaccine out of pure oppositional defiance. That is, "I'm not getting the shot because people are telling me to get the shot." To them I say, "You should NOT get the vaccine. DON'T get it. Don't get it TODAY." Oddly enough, I've had one person get the vaccine right after that. Perhaps also because I said I could not ride in a car with them even masked because I think I will croak if I get it. Ribbit.

My small (32K) county has just added five covid-19 deaths for a total of 11. Five in one week. It's in a care facility, so all the deaths are frail people over 70. With staff sick too, the facility is overwhelmed and stressed and is getting help from the health department and the hospital. Sigh. At present 22% of the cases have been in people vaccinated. That percentage is slowly dropping as time goes on. Our case rate is rising, currently 486/100,000 people. That is the highest it has been for the whole time.

Here is a summary of yesterday's updated US government Covid plan: https://apadanamedia.org/analysis-bidens-six-step-covid-plan-explained/. When I was traveling as a Mad as Hell Doctor, people did say that they don't trust government in health care. However, they also did not appear to know that medicare, medicaid, active duty military healthcare, the Veterans Hospitals and disability are all government programs, and no one that we talked to wanted to see those programs go away. It felt fairly weird to have people be pro-medicare and anti-government in healthcare. I don't completely understand the government as "them". Don't we elect "them"? Isn't it the government of the people, by the people, for the people? I guess Walt Kelly was right: We have met the enemy and he is us.

Take care.