Maine’s Top Vaccinated County, Cumberland, Has Maine’s Highest 7-day COVID Case Average.
Edmund R. Folsom, February 2, 2022.
That’s right, Maine’s most Vaccinated County – Cumberland, (literally) boasting a vaccination rate for its eligible population of 87.47% — now has Maine’s highest 7-day average of new reported COVID-19 cases, both absolutely and per capita.
According to the daily case data published by Maine’s CDC, 2,216 of Maine’s newly recorded COVID-19 cases over the past 7 days were in Cumberland County. York County had the second most cases, with 1,213 cases over the same time frame. That amounts to a 7-day, daily new case average per 100,000 population of 107.31 for Cumberland County and 83.45 for York. Cumberland County’s eligible-population vaccination rate of 87.47% is the highest in Maine, while York County’s rate of 74.44% is the sixth highest among Maine’s 16 counties. Oh, by the way, Maine’s lowest per capita 7-day new case average per 100,000 is in Washington County (36.42), with a vaccination rate of 67.77%. The next lowest new case rate is in Franklin County (40.20), which has Maine’s 14th lowest vaccination rate, 63.40%.
Back in December, when Maine’s lowest vaccinated Counties had some of Maine’s highest 7-day new case averages per 100,000 population, the press and public health authorities attributed it to causation. Where are their cries of causation now?
When new cases first began rising in Cumberland and York Counties, back at the end of December/first of January, the authorities told us it was because the Omicron variant was taking over and was hitting the more-populated counties first. But now the Omicron variant has been with us for some time. It has peaked and is subsiding. And yet, 87.47%-vaccinated Cumberland County had — far and away — more reported daily new cases than anywhere else in Maine over the past week. Meanwhile, the less populated, less vaccinated counties that were roundly condemned in December are boasting 7-day new case averages far smaller than Cumberland’s – some less than half of Cumberland’s. Explanation? Crickets…
Breakthrough Cases.
Maine’s CDC released its most recent report on COVID-19 breakthrough infections yesterday, February 1. COVID-19 cases rose 8,539 since the last report on January 21, while breakthrough infections rose 4,744. Breakthrough infections represented 55.5% of new reported COVID-19 cases during the period. Breakthrough cases now make up 27.36% of all reported COVID-19 cases since the date in January of 2021 when the first person in Maine became fully vaccinated.
Massachusetts also released its most recent breakthrough case report yesterday. New COVID-19 cases have declined sharply there over the past couple of weeks, on the downside of the Omicron case surge. Massachusetts reports 27,530 new breakthrough cases from January 23 to January 29. Its COVID-19 dashboard reports a 7-day average of 5,457.9 new confirmed cases on January 29, which converts to 38,205 cases over the previous week. Adding the 1,969 probable cases shown on the dashboard from 1/21 on gives us a total of 40,174 confirmed and probable cases, of which 27,530 were breakthroughs. That’s a breakthrough case rate of 68.52% for the past week. That’s a lot of COVID infection and spread among the vaccinated.
I guess it was rank misinformation when President Biden told us in late July that we wouldn’t get COVID-19 if we got vaccinated, just before he cranked up the vaccine mandate regime and made examples of all the socially dangerous wreckers among us.
