Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
Except for one really sparsely populated county, all the other counties in Vermont are in the mid 70s or above for their eligible vaccination rates. The highest rates of infection occurred in a few small towns, but these places are so tiny that it only takes a few cases to trip their percentages higher. In sheer numbers, the Burlington area, which counts as the only real urban environment in the state (would be a mid-sized town everywhere else) has by far and away the most cases. Overall, the caseloads don't follow any particular geographic pattern. The pattern that does exist is seen on an individual level- they're mostly among the unvaccinated.In Oregon, the recent Delta spike has hit the low density counties in Oregon the hardest... which are also the areas of low vaccination rates. Pretty simple, I think. The huge wave at the beginning of this year really impacted the high density areas of Oregon badly. Vaccines became available and many (by percentage) in the high population areas got vaccinated. The Delta wave is having a low impact (per 100K people) on the densely populated areas due to enough people (not all, by far, but enough to keep from having a dramatic spike) being vaccinated. The rural countries of low vax rates aren't so fortunate. If nothing else, it shows that getting more vaccinations (say 70%) makes a big difference compared to 50%. (guessing the numbers here since I don't have them in front of me).
Oregon doesn't behave in a monolithic manner; in this case seems to follow rural/urban divide. Perhaps Vermont is similar.