AZ Pandemic in Numbers for the Week Ending July 3

 


Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers for the week just ended:

There are increases again this week in the new case numbers. The increases are fractions of a percent, but if they are consistent every week they will start adding up. Unlike last week the positive test rate has decreased slightly.

S-Gene dropouts (which indicate the Alpha variant) continue to decline, and the Delta sequences are up, suggesting Delta is crowding-out Alpha. That is not good a Delta is estimated to be 60% more contagious than Alpha (which was itself about 50% more contagious than the original strain).

Much to my surprise, we had a surge in vaccinations last week.  Here is the accelerometer:


It is such an increase, especially in people fully vaccinated, I wonder if it's not due to some reporting snafu that got corrected. The other possibility is that unvaccinated people are scared of Delta, which they should be.

I had occasion to take a look at the AZ vaccination rates in different age groups, so I though I would share that. Naturally, ADHS reports raw numbers rather than something actually useful for comparison, like numbers proportional to the population in that age group.  

Turns out the latter is a little challenging because age demographics aren't necessarily available in the same age categories as the ones used by ADHS to report vaccinations. I found something where the categories were pretty close and used those population proportions to estimate the percent of people in each age group with at least one dose:


Clearly people 54 and under require some more encouragement to get vaccinated.  Maybe if cases and the Delta percent keep going up, it will motivate them.

Top Image by Shutterbug75 from Pixabay

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