Ohio Unvaccinated Kids Experiencing COVID Hospitalizations in Record Numbers

“Although coronavirus-related hospitalizations are beginning to trend down nationally among all age groups, the rate of pediatric infections remains at an 'exceptionally high' level, according to experts.

“Across the country, federal data shows that nearly 2,000 children are currently hospitalized with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19. In recent weeks, as the viral surge in the South is finally showing signs of abatement, pediatric hospital admissions have fallen by more than 30%. However, on average, more than 250 children continue to be admitted to the hospital each day with the virus.

“In Ohio, which currently has the country's second highest total of pediatric COVID-19 hospitalizations, the crisis among children remains at a critical level.”

(Arielle Mitropoulos. “Ohio health care workers warn of 'astronomical' COVID-19 pediatric surge.”  https://abcnews.go.com/Health/ohio-health-care-workers-warn-astronomical-covid-19/story?id=80309375 ABC News. September 30, 2021.)

Front-line workers at Dayton Children's Hospital told ABC News they have seen a "record number" of virus-positive patients, since the highly infectious delta variant hit the state over the summer.

"We're seeing an increase in our census that's been astronomical," said charge nurse Will Andres. "[It's] pretty hard to keep our heads above water, day in and day out."

As of September 29, more than 210 children are hospitalized with COVID-19, across the state. According to Ohio’s COVID dashboard, since July, there have been close to 440 children hospitalized in Ohio.

The reality is that the surge is threatening the capacity of the pediatric safety net. And, children appear to be getting sicker than at previous points in the pandemic – particularly adolescents who have not been vaccinated.

The influx of patients in need of care has left some front-line workers feeling overwhelmed, overworked and mentally drained. The most difficult aspect of this all, according to Karen Davis, a pediatric intensive care nurse, has been watching so many children suffer through the illness.

Michele Nadolsky, a clinical team leader in the emergency room, and a 28-year veteran of the hospital, added that she feels an "overwhelming sense of defeat," particularly as a "large" number of nurses leave the business, resulting in staffing shortages.

A huge concern is uncertainty about what may happen six months to a year from now – “what kind of symptoms or long-term effect is it going to have on them as they continue to grow and mature," Nadolsky said.

Another worrying trend, one doctor said, is the notable number of children who are often forced to stay alone in the hospital because their parents are battling COVID-19.

"I think most of the time, the children who have COVID infections have another family member, often an adult, who is also sick with COVID," Amit Vohra, a pediatric intensivist at the hospital, said. "Those parents are unable to visit the children at the hospital. Oftentimes, nobody's here with them for some hours of every day. So those are the times that I think our nurses step in to provide that emotional level of support that the children need ... These kids are often short of breath, they're hurting in their chest. They're breathless, they're anxious, they're concerned: Are they 'going to die?'"

Dr. Adam Mezoff, Chief Medical Officer and Pediatric Gastroenterologist at Dayton Children's Hospital, says …

“Many of us have have personally spoken with schools, the public health department. I was on a I call throughout the state of Ohio with our other six children's hospitals. We were speaking to the school boards of the state, again encouraging them to make a decision to put children first, make them safe, let them stay in school, let them mask. Masks do not harm children. So we, as adults, need to allow our children to be safe and to do what they can do.”

(Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “Ohio Sees Uptick In COVID-19 Cases In Children.” National Public Radio. September 26, 2021.)

Pediatricians from across the Ohio Valley say this new wave of COVID-19 is sickening children with severe symptoms that require hospitalizations, as school districts continue to try to maintain in-person learning without closures. Hospitals in the region are also reporting capacity strains, and children’s hospitals are concerned about having enough space and staff to treat children who get transferred from remote areas.

Dr. Matthew Bacon, interim division chief for pediatric critical care at Kentucky Children’s Hospital in Lexington, reports all of the children he has treated with COVID-19 have one thing in common — none of them are vaccinated.

“To my knowledge, still, we have not admitted a child to the Children’s Hospital in the age group of 12 to 18 that has been vaccinated,” Bacon said.

(Liam Niemeyer. “More Ohio Valley Children Are Becoming Severely Sick With COVID-19. Pediatricians Are Worried About What Lies Ahead.” ohiovalleyresource.org. September 03, 2021.)

 

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on May 12 announced COVID-19 Pfizer vaccinations will now be available to Ohio’s youth, age 12 years and older, following members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)

Recent numbers (9/26) from Mayo Clinic show Ohio percentage of the population COVID vaccinations (fully vaccinated) of age 12-17 at 35%.

CDC recommends everyone 12 years and older should get a COVID-19 vaccination to help protect against COVID-19. Widespread vaccination is a critical tool to help stop the pandemic. Harvard Health reports that the rise of the more contagious and possibly more dangerous Delta variant, combined with the protection offered by herd immunity, supports the CDC recommendation that all children ages 12 year and older get vaccinated.

Children, including very young children, can develop COVID-19. Many of them have no symptoms. Those that do get sick tend to experience milder symptoms such as low-grade fever, fatigue, and cough. Some children have had severe complications, but this has been less common. Children with underlying health conditions may be at increased risk for severe illness.

When children’s COVID-19 symptoms require them to be hospitalized, Bacon said two types of disease or symptoms show up. Respiratory disease is one.

“So kids will get really short of breath. If we hook up pulse oximeters up to them, their saturations will be very low,” he said. “And they feel really rundown, and kind of overall working very hard to breathe.”

Depending on the severity of the respiratory symptoms, kids may need to be hospitalized or admitted to a pediatric ICU, Bacon said. Treatments include steroids, FDA-approved remdesivir for children over age 12 and blood thinners.

“And other than those two, three therapies, the treatment is largely supportive care,” Bacon said.

The other complication kids can get from the virus is called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C. Bacon said the disease is still considered to be rare, but Kentucky Children’s Hospital has seen between 25 and 30 cases.

MIS-C can cause inflammation in multiple organs: the brain, eyes, gastrointestinal organs, heart, kidneys, lungs and skin. It can be deadly, but most children recover with treatment. Yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t know the cause of the disease.

(Liam Niemeyer. “More Ohio Valley Children Are Becoming Severely Sick With COVID-19. Pediatricians Are Worried About What Lies Ahead.” ohiovalleyresource.org. September 03, 2021.)

Scioto County Stats

The Ohio Department of Health (last updated 9/29) reports the Scioto County “Children Under 18” case count is 1,544 with a population of 16,277. The daily cases trend here is 18.

The Desperate Need For Firearm Data Infrastructure: Solving Gun Violence

 

“Any reasoned debate on firearms in the United States, particularly one that seeks to protect 2nd Amendment rights while taking seriously the role of firearms in America’s disproportionate violence, must begin with a shared set of facts. At present, the firearms data infrastructure in the United States is too limited to provide that foundation …

“The United States is unique among peer nations in the incidence and prevalence of violence in general, and firearms violence in particular. The lack of research on the causes and correlates of firearms violence in America is well established.

“Without a broadly accepted set of facts to anchor a public dialogue, the civic discourse is one of extremes and caricatures and inevitably dormant policy making. At the same time, the crime decline of the last generation – which was not distributed equally across communities, cities, and regions – has slowed, stalled, or even reversed in many parts of the country. With no broad and promising policy mechanisms emerging to spur future reductions, the result is an equilibrium level of firearms violence that far exceeds reason and few emerging population-level interventions.”

(“First Report of the Expert Panel on Firearms Data Infrastructure:
The State of Firearms Data in 2019.” National Opinion Research Center. University of Chicago. January 2020.)

The goal of this panel on firearms is to produce practical guidance for a rigorous, objective, and sustainable firearms data architecture for use by local, state, and federal policymakers and their constituents.

Granted, any study on guns is bound to meet strong protests from the NRA and the gun lobby. Let's face it – a large segment of firearms enthusiasts view any challenge or question about guns as threats to their constitutional rights of gun ownership.

While mass killings, homicides, and violent crimes get most of the headlines, the CDC wants to study the true toll of guns in America. Eric Westervelt of NPR explains …

“But for decades, the devastating impact of nonfatal firearm injuries in the U.S. has been understudied, undercovered by the media and often overlooked. Political pressure from the gun lobby, regulations and 'disordered and highly segmented' collection systems have created chronically unreliable data and information that obscure our true understanding of the public health, financial, psychological and social toll of gun injuries, according to a 2020 study on firearms.”

(Eric Westervelt. “After 25 Years In The Dark, The CDC Wants To Study The True Toll Of Guns In America.” National Public Radio. September 29, 2021.)

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that just over 100 people, on average, are killed by firearms in the U.S. every day. That includes crimes, suicides, gun accidents and shootings involving law enforcement.

People in public health, criminal justice, policing and academia admit they lack full and adequate answers for understanding the deaths. The violence begs for answers to important questions. For example …

• How often is someone injured by a firearm in America?

• Why, how and what kinds of weapons are used?

• What are the underlying causes?

• What's the relationship between shooter and victim?

• What evidence-based, scalable programs work best to help prevent criminal shootings, accidents and suicides?

• Do restrictions on assault weapons reduce violence?

• Are there “best practices” that could prevent suicides, homicides or accidental injuries?

• What reforms could impede mass shootings?

For decades, the gun lobby and Republican allies in Congress effectively blocked federal funding for firearms research, arguing that such study would undermine the constitutional rights of lawful gun owners. By one estimate – a two-year study of gun policy in America by researchers at RAND – the government spends about 1.6% as much on such questions as it does researching traffic deaths.

The editors of Bloomberg report …

“The last time a CDC director attempted to address gun violence was in the mid-1990s, when some of the agency’s research had connected home firearm ownership to higher rates of gun deaths. A Republican Congress, heeding industry lobbyists, promptly passed legislation blocking the CDC from spending resources to “advocate or promote gun control.” For good measure, it also cut $2.6 million from the agency’s budget — the exact amount spent on gun research the prior year.

“Over the next quarter-century, virtually all federally funded gun research ground to a halt. With few grants available, academics avoided the issue. Published research fell by 64% between 1998 and 2012. Although gun violence is the second-leading cause of death among young Americans, the U.S. government spent only $12 million to study the topic – extending a grand total of 32 grants – between 2007 and 2018. Cancer, the third-leading cause, received $335 million a year.”

(Editors: Bloomberg. “Gun Violence Is an Epidemic. Better Data Can Help.” The Washington Post. September 28, 2021.)

 

(The graph, taken from a 2017 Journal of the American Medical Association article, shows that when looking at the 30 leading causes of death in the U.S. by mortality rate and publication volume, it is evident that the U.S. spends less money on research and publishes fewer articles on gun violence than nearly all of the other leading causes of death.)

As a result of lack of funding, experts say, in-depth gun-data collection and sharing in the U.S. is a tangled mess that undermines objective research on programs and policies intended to prevent firearm injury, suicide and criminal violence.

These and other basic questions about how to prevent gun violence have gone unresearched. Officials find themselves going in circles because they don’t have the data they need. Clarence Wardell, Vice President of Solutions at Results for America, a leading voice in advancing and driving evidence-based policy change, says, “Most folks assume that someone, somewhere is collecting this information, and they’re shocked when they find out it isn’t being collected.”

Nancy Potok, CEO of NAPx Consulting and the former Chief Statistician of the United States, explains …

“Even if particular communities are collecting this information and acting locally, there isn’t really the ability to compare communities because there’s a lack of standardized data. The local, state, and federal government all have an important role in data collection. Without basic information that can be compared, it’s hard to do anything about gun violence …

“It’s not just about collecting more data, it’s about how the data are used to understand some very complex dynamics. That requires more than one data set from one agency. It requires that health data, demographic data, crime data, and other data be brought together. The Foundations of Evidence-Based Policy Act, which passed Congress in 2018, puts strong protections around that data and makes it available to researchers. Our report builds on that new statutory authority, and takes a holistic approach. Gun violence doesn’t have a single dimension—it’s complex.”

(“America Knows Surprisingly Little About Firearms Usage. A New Expert Panel Sets Out To Fix That.” Arnold Ventures. 2021.)

Recommendations call on the federal government to revise how handling of gun violence data is collected and analyzed, chiefly by empowering researchers to fully explore all aspects of the nation’s gun violence epidemic; improving databases tracking things like nonviolent shootings; standardizing and improving the collection of data by law enforcement entities; and conducting annual surveys of firearm ownership and storage practices. With more comprehensive data available, policymakers would be better equipped to craft solutions, and the public would be better informed about the scope of the gun violence issue.

According to a price estimate by Health Management Associates (HMA), it will cost between $587 and $639 million over five years – or roughly $117 to $128 million annually – for the federal government to fully implement the gun violence research and data infrastructure improvements recommended by the Joyce Foundation and a NORC expert panel at the University of Chicago.

(Kira Lerner. “$120 million a year would close gun violence research gap.” The Joyce Foundation. July 13, 2021.) 

A 2015 op-ed in The Washington Post written by Mark Rosenberg, who once oversaw gun violence research at the CDC, and Jay Dickey, the former Republican congressman from Arkansas who sponsored the 1996 amendment that stifled that research and that still bears his name concludes that Congress has to say that it wants gun violence research before government agencies will invest meaningfully in gun violence research.

In part, op-ed read …

“We can get there only through research Our nation does not have to choose between reducing gun-violence injuries and safeguarding gun ownership. Indeed, scientific research helped reduce the motor vehicle death rate in the United States and save hundreds of thousands of lives – all without getting rid of cars. For example, research led to the development of simple four-foot barricades dividing oncoming traffic that are preventing injuries and saving many lives. We can do the same with respect to firearm-related deaths, reducing their numbers while preserving the rights of gun owners.

“If we are to be successful , those of us on opposite sides of this issue will have to do a better job of respecting, understanding and working with each other. In the area of firearms injuries, collaboration has a special meaning. It will require real partnership on the design of the research we do because while we often hear about 'common-sense gun laws,' common sense is not enough to both keep us safe and to protect the Second Amendment.”

(Jay Dickey and Mark Rosenberg. “How to protect gun rights while reducing the toll of gun violence.” The Washington Post. December 25, 2015.)

A Child's Pledge of Allegiance

I pledge allegiance
To the discourse
Of the divided states of mind
And to the guns
For which they hold
One crowd
Under fire
Inescapable
With funerals and bullets
For all

By Ozzie, August 2019

Ghost Tracks -- Evidence of Humans in North America Over 20,000 Years Ago

These human footprints from what’s now New Mexico may be between 23,000 and 21,000 years old. If so, that would make them some of the best evidence yet that humans were in North America during the height of the last ice age. David Bustos/National Park Service, Bournemouth Univ.

“On the right day, given the proper conditions, human footprints can appear out of nowhere on the flats of White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Park scientists call them 'ghost tracks,' and they look like prints from a beachgoer striding across damp sand.

“But new research published today in Science reports that at least some of these prints could be tens of thousands of years old, making them potentially the best evidence yet that people reached the Americas far earlier than once believed. Radiocarbon dating of seeds surrounding the prints suggests that they were made during the Last Glacial Maximum, when massive ice sheets are thought to have blocked any passage from the Bering Land Bridge into southern North America.”

(Rachael Moeller Gorman. “Ancient Human Footprints in New Mexico Dated to Ice Age.” The Scientist. September 23, 2021.)

If this claim is validated, we are looking at pushing human occupation back much earlier than almost anybody had anticipated.

“I would like to see the researchers use other validation techniques to check the dates before breaking out the champagne. This is the kind of stuff that makes you rewrite textbooks. For the good of the field, we need really high standards But if further verification confirms the age of the tracks, the discovery will show us that people have this amazing ability to survive and thrive during a time when global conditions were extreme.”

– Loren Davis, anthropologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis

The new study does leave room for doubt. Its own authors raise the point that radiocarbon dating of aquatic material can sometimes be subject to something called hard-water or “reservoir” effects, which could potentially make the age results too old. But the team radiocarbon dated other local materials and compared it to the seeds, and also examined the placement of the seeds in the layers themselves, to try to address this possibility.

However, the presence of a mammoth track in one of the topmost, or youngest, layers indicates that the upper age of the site can’t be more recent than the late Pleistocene, when the animals went extinct. The researchers write in their paper that, “In our view, an improbable series of events would be required to introduce a large hard-water effect by ~23,000 years ago when such effects were minimal for the previous ~20,000 years.”

(Rachael Moeller Gorman. “Ancient Human Footprints in New Mexico Dated to Ice Age.” The Scientist. September 23, 2021.)

Despite a plethora of archaeological research over the past century, the timing of human migration into the Americas is still far from resolved. These finds indicate the presence of humans in North America for approximately two millennia during the Last Glacial Maximum south of the migratory barrier created by the ice sheets to the north. This timing coincided with a Northern Hemispheric abrupt warming event, Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, which drew down lake levels and allowed humans and megafauna to walk on newly exposed surfaces, creating tracks that became preserved in the geologic record.

(Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Jeffrey S. Pigati et al. “Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum.” Science. September 24, 2021. Vol 373. Issue 6562.)

Footprints preserved in the boundless expanses of New Mexico‘s White Sands National Park have drawn the attention of scientists since the early 1930s, when a government trapper spotted a print measuring a stunning 22 inches long and eight inches wide. He was convinced he‘d found evidence for the mythical Bigfoot. (Actually, it was a giant sloth.) (Debra Adams Simmons. “Were People In the Americas Much Earlier Than Thought? National Geographic. September 27, 2021.) For years, people have noticed that in particularly wet periods of the year at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, they could see footprints appearing as if out of nowhere on the ground. They would disappear again when the soil dried out, earning them the nickname “ghost tracks.” By studying the shape, size, and distribution of the footprints, the researchers attempted to piece together what happened during the ancient walk across the muddy ground. The primary track maker could have been either a woman 12 years or older, or possibly a young man, based on a comparison of the footprint lengths to modern humans. In at least three points along the way, tiny footprints join the main trackway, evidence of a child less than three years old. The spacing of the tracks suggests the person was traveling around 3.8 miles an hour. While not a jog, this would have been a hasty pace considering the muddy conditions and heavy load. (Matthew R.Bennett, DavidBusto et al.”Walking in mud: Remarkable Pleistocene human trackways from White Sands National Park (New Mexico)” Quaternary Science Reviews. Volume 249, 1 December 2020.) Many archaeologists have placed the start of human life in the Americas toward the end of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago, reports Carl Zimmer for the New York Times. That’s when some of the oldest known tools, made by the Clovis culture in what is now New Mexico, appear. Melting of ice sheets as the world warmed could have allowed hunter-gatherers to cross a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska. Since the 1970s, other archaeological work has suggested that humans arrived on the continent earlier, perhaps between 16,000 and 17,000 years ago, traveling down Pacific Coast routes that became passable while the continent’s interior was still icy, writes Maya Wei-Haas for National Geographic. (Livia Gershon. “Prehistoric Footprints Push Back Timeline of Humans’ Arrival in North America.” Smithsonian Magazine. September 24, 2021.) Some researchers have also published evidence of a much earlier human presence in North America, including stone tools dated to as long as 30,000 years ago. But others have questioned whether the discoveries were really tools shaped by humans, and whether estimates of their age are correct. The new White Sands research is different because the prints were obviously made by people, study co-author Vance Holliday, an archaeologist and geologist at the University of Arizona, tells National Geographic. Even if the study’s findings hold up, the question of what became of North America’s Ice Age inhabitants remains. Andrea Manica, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the study, tells BBC News’ Paul Rincon that clear evidence of ancestors of modern Native Americans splitting from Asian populations 15,000 to 16,000 years ago exists. “This would suggest that the initial colonists of the Americas were replaced when the ice corridor formed and another wave of colonists came in,” he says. “We have no idea how that happened.” (Livia Gershon. “Prehistoric Footprints Push Back Timeline of Humans’ Arrival in North America.” Smithsonian Magazine. September 24, 2021.)    Ghost Dance Patti Smith What is it children that falls from the sky? Tayi, taya, tayi, aye aye. Mannah from Heaven from the most high, Food from the father, tayi, taye aye. We shall live again, we shall live again, We shall live again, shake out the ghost dance. Peace to your brother, give and take peace, Tayi, taya, it leaves two feet One foot extended, snake to the ground, Wave up the Earth, one turn around. We shall live again, we shall live again, We shall live again, shake out the ghost dance.

Republicans Believe Trump's "Big Lie"

 

“A new CNN poll found that 78% of Republicans do not believe that Biden won last November and is therefore not the legitimate president.”

– CNN Poll conducted by SSRS August 3 through September 7, 2021 (margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points)

"The real problem is we have one of the two legacy parties that is completely bought into this and doesn't want to hear anything else but a confirmation of that untruth that has been told and that, I think, is the most dangerous thing facing our democracy," sayd Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for ex-President George W. Bush.

Among Republicans, 78% say that Biden did not win and 54% believe there is solid evidence of that, despite the fact that no such evidence exists. That view is also deeply connected to support for Trump. Among Republicans who say Trump should be the leader of the party, 88% believe Biden lost – including 64% who say there is solid evidence that he did not win – while among those Republicans who do not want Trump to lead the Party, 57% say Biden won legitimately.

(Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy. “CNN Poll: Most Americans feel democracy is under attack in the US.” CNN. September 15, 2021.)

What Does This GOP Disbelief Mean?

A Monmouth University poll conducted February 25- March 1, 2021, found 29 percent of Republicans say they will never accept Biden as president. And, of course, that belief was also echoed by rioters who breached the Capitol on January 6 in the effort to stop the election results from being certified.

1. Future Election Uncertainty

   The lack of trust in the election system has led to Republicans being more skeptical about the election results. Looking to future elections, the CNN poll reported that 51% of all Americans say it's at least somewhat likely that an election in the next few years will be overturned by elected officials because their party lost, while 49% say that is unlikely.

2. Democracy Is Under Attack

   Views on this prospect are more closely tied to perceptions of the threat facing American democracy than to partisanship. Those who say that democracy in America is under attack are most apt to believe it's likely that an election will be overturned for partisan reasons (58%), while most who do not see democracy as under attack say that's unlikely (58%). Among Republicans, 57% say an overturned election is very or somewhat likely, while 48% of independents and 49% of Democrats feel the same way.

3. Return of Trump As Candidate

   The lie that the last election was a fix is already shaping the terrain in which candidates, especially Republicans, are running in midterm elections in 2022. And the widespread belief that Trump was cheated out of power is building the former President a 2024 platform to mount a GOP presidential primary bid if he wishes

4. Future Insurrections

   Longer term, the fact that tens of millions of Americans were seduced by Trump's lies about election fraud poses grave questions about the future of America's democratic political architecture itself. Ultimately, if a large minority of the population no longer has faith in rule by the people for the people, how long can that system survive?

   And if the will of millions of people is no longer expressed through voting, what other outlets are there? Already, the January 6 insurrection has shown what happens when aggrieved groups – in this case incited by a massive lie – take matters into their own hands.

   
   
   

The Frightening Possibility

The Republican acceptance of Trump's big lie makes for an uncertain future. The truth is, the less you care about what voters want, the closer you move to authoritarianism. The Republicans strategy is the hope to “game” elections, and Trump has taken the next logical step: Try to disenfranchise voters not only before but after elections.

The incredible part of the equation is that an American President was able to reinvent the truth in plain sight, and get away with it … at least in one political party's eyes. Now, Trump is poised to reap the fruits of his own anti-democratic campaign. His lock on the party grassroots appears to give him a prohibitive advantage in the next presidential primary campaign if he decides to run.

The “Big Lie” allegations are getting a second wind. Republicans are expected to believe the falsehoods, pretend they do or, at bare minimum, not let it be known that they don’t. Allegiance to a lie has become a test of loyalty to Donald Trump and a means of self-preservation for Republicans.

Do you want a historical analogy? Former Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder offers one. Holder says …

"I think about ... those democracies that were lost in the middle part, the early part of the 20th century where democracy was not adequately defended and authoritarian regimes rose. And it wasn't because democracy was unpopular. You know, democracy was strong. But the reality is the defense of democracy was weak, and we cannot allow that to happen in this country."

 

Trump’s election lie has become GOP orthodoxy. But, the real issue is Republican lawmakers using the ploy for an excuse to practice voter suppression in the United States. The fact that so many people believe the big lie causes GOP candidates to go to the voters and say, “We're going to make sure that only the Republican can win.”

As Congressional Republicans’ attempted to overturn the 2020 election, state-level officials began a disenfranchisement blitz, introducing more than 160 bills this year to restrict ballot access going forward.

The notion that lawmakers can simply disregard the will of the people is an affront to the very idea of representative democracy. And yet Republicans no longer seem to be exerting so much effort trying to disguise their motives. Eric Lutz of Vanity Fair explains …

“One lesson Trump taught them (Republicans) is that they need not be so subtle about this kind of thing; much of the GOP base was emboldened, rather than turned off, by his increasingly audacious attacks on the electoral system. For a party that has no real platform and represents fewer Americans, and which apparently has no immediate interest in evolving, limiting or disregarding its opponents’ voters may be the most reliable path to power.

“Thanks to Trump, some of them may no longer be so shy about saying so. 'They don’t have to change all of them,' a county-level election official in Georgia said of voting laws at a Republican meeting in January. 'But they’ve got to change the major parts of them so that we at least have a shot at winning.'”

(Eric Lutz. “Trump’s Election Lies Are Fueling a New GOP Voter Suppression Crusade.” Vanity Fair. February 9, 2021.)

The Ohio River -- Did It Ever Dry Up?

 

Walking across the Ohio River was actually possible. Due to a 2 month drought, navigation along Ohio River was suspended. According to records, the river hit a record low stage of 2 inches in Wheeling in Oct 1908. Picture from: Ohio County Public Library.

“The sight is nothing short of spectacular: A crinkled postcard of what appears to be a dried riverbed with the words, 'Ohio River: Bridgeport, Ohio, Oct. 15th, 1908.' Typically this image is displayed online with some type of annotation declaring that the Ohio River had actually dried up in this image.

“Though it is not true that the Ohio River has ever 'dried up' in modern history, in the autumn of 1908, the river did reach unbelievably low water levels – so much so that it is still being talked about more than a century later.”

(“October 1908: The Month the Ohio River Began Drying. Appalachian Magazine. October 15, 2019.)

In October 1908,the Ohio River dropped to two inches below zero (meaning two inches below navigable water depth). A week following the above photograph, on October 23, 1908, the Henderson Daily Gleaner (Henderson Kentucky) reported that boys were playing baseball every day in the middle of the riverbed.

“The river at this point has received very little thought for the past few weeks, by reason of the fact that the stage has gotten so low that all business has ceased and it is almost hazardous for even small gasoline boats to run,” the paper reported, adding, “Only a short time ago the Jewell was compelled to stop and only the Nisbet can find enough water to run through. In Green River, it is the same. The river at Spottsville being lined on both sides with boats and barges waiting for enough water to carry them through the locks.”

Bars, the Gleaner said, were visible along the river's length "and at Evansville the river is hardly 50 yards wide … Mr. John Sieber says that in his opinion the water is three or four inches lower than it has ever been at the water works. Captain Shelby says that he has seen it several inches lower."

On that October 23rd, the National Weather Service at Evansville recorded an official river reading of 2.0 feet. Alarming as that was, it represented a slight improvement over the period from October 11-16 when the reading was 1.3 feet.

(Judy Jenkins. Henderson Daily Gleaner. Progress Edition. March 30, 1996.)

National Weather Service records at the Greater Cincinnati International Airport list more than 160 Ohio River floods dating back to 1773. There have been many occasions when the Ohio River was shallow enough in the Covington-Newport area for a person to wade across the river. About 10 times the river dipped to less than 3-feet deep and once was listed at only 1.9 feet deep.

According to the Weather Service, in October 1908, the Ohio River officially was listed at less than 3 feet deep for the last time. The river dipped to 2.6 feet on October 6 after a long dry spell that hit tobacco dealers especially hard. The dry spell not only stunted the crops, but the shallow river level hindered many farmers from taking their meager crops to market.

Since 1908, the yearly low river mark has gradually increased. With only a few exceptions, such as 1927 when it dipped to 5.3 feet, the Ohio River has not dropped below 10 feet since 1935.

(Jim Reis. “Pieces of the Past.” The Kentucky Post. Covington. June 02, 2000.)

Ohio River showing the Lowest State of Water ever recorded - October 1908. Posted by Marc McCune on facebook site "You know you are from Wellsville, Ohio, if:. No other source information was given. 

The main reason we tend to take the Ohio River for granted today is the system of locks and dams that were designed to keep a more constant water level for river navigation and control floods. These man-made controls have helped prevent some of the extremes in high and low water levels that were once determined only by nature.

So what’s the truth of this highly debated and much shared Bridgeport photograph?

1. The image is not even of the entire Ohio River, but was taken from Wheeling Island, West Virginia, looking west toward the State of Ohio. The main stem of the river flows to the east of Wheeling Island, while the water to the westside of the island is little more than a football field in width.

2. Secondly, water is still visibly flowing in the image, though it is clearly and dramatically much lower than what is seen at typical levels.

   
   Babbs Island is an island in Hancock County, West Virginia on the Ohio River between East Liverpool, Ohio and Chester, West Virginia. This much is true for sure. There were times you could walk to Babbs Island.

Just How Bad Was the 1908 Drought?

The September 26, 1908, edition of The Akron Beacon Journal, reported the drought paled in comparison to one that had occurred a couple generations earlier.

“This season has certainly been dry, and the drought, especially during the past few weeks, has been a very serious one, but still the memory of the oldest inhabitants runs back to a year when there was a worse one… [The drought in the summer of 1845]: There was no rain from the last of March until the tenth of June, when there fell a little rain for one day, but no more until the second of July, when there probably fell a half inch, for it made the roads a little muddy. From this time no rain fell until early in September …

“So great was the scarcity of food for the domestic animals that early in the autumn droves of cattle were sent into the valley of the Scioto to pass the winter. Many stocks of dairy cows were broken up and dispersed, selling for only four or five dollars a head, as the cost of wintering would be more than their worth in the spring.”

(“October 1908: The Month the Ohio River Began Drying. Appalachian Magazine. October 15, 2019.)

Picture of a car crossing the Ohio River in 1908... Wellsburg, WV, just south of Steubenville, OH.

The Truth Is Still Amazing

The Ohio might not have dried up; however, it is true – before dams were built on the Ohio, you could walk across the entire width of the river in periods of extremely dry weather, and, obviously, traffic by boat would be impossible.

Federal involvement in improving the Ohio River for commercial navigation began in 1824 when Congress directed the Corps to find a method of removing sandbars and snags. The desired channel depths to be attained by this clearing and snagging program was 3 feet, and 30 inches for the lower and Upper River reaches, respectively. This depth was deemed adequate for vessels at the time, consisting of steamboats, keelboats, and flatboats.

After the Civil War, the movement of coal downriver from Pittsburgh increased greatly and the size of coal tows grew in length as powerful steam towboats pushed more and more wooden barges. To accommodate the burgeoning coal trade, the Corps studied means of providing a dependable navigation depth on the Ohio. Following an international investigation of navigation projects, engineer officers concluded that the Ohio could best be improved by constructing a series of locks and dams to create slack water pools.

Largely due to the success of the Davis Island project on the Ohio river in Avalon, Pennsylvania, completed in 1885, Congress authorized a study of an extension of the 6-foot minimum depth down the Upper Ohio in 1888. The board recommended building a series of dams and locks to create a 6-foot depth from Davis Island to just below the mouth of the Beaver River. Lock and Dam No. 6, named Merrill Dam in honor of the great engineer, was built next. The first appropriations were made in 1890, but meager annual funding delayed the dam's completion until 1906. The first appropriations for Nos. 2 through 5 were not made until 1896.

In the early 1900s, members of the .OVIA and other groups were pointing out that large barge tows often drew more than 6 feet of water. They asked Congress to consider creating 9-foot minimum depths.

In 1905 Congress authorized an analysis of the feasibility of extending the slackwater system to the mouth of the Ohio. A special board of engineers called the Lodkwood Board after its senior member--Colonel Daniel W. Lockwood--conducted the study.

The board confirmed that the steamboat packet trade was dying out, but some 9 million tons of bulk commodities, mainly coal from the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys, were annually sent downriver. After an economic evaluation, the board estimated completion of a 6-foot project from Pittsburgh to Cairo would cost about $51 million, while the more ambitious 9-foot alternative would require construction of fifty-four dams at a cost of $63 million.

The board argued, however, that the latter alternative would greatly extend economic benefits by encouraging the development of large bulk traffic volumes. In reviewing the proposal, the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors (created in 1902 to independently review projects and eliminate "pork") observed that, although the scale of the undertaking was unprecedented, the project was worthwhile.

In the progressive climate created by the studies of the Inland Waterways Commission, created in 1907, support for the huge effort grew. Skeptics suggested it was foolhardy to canalize a river on which commerce was declining and to spend money based on projected future economic activity. But with the support of individuals such as President William H. Taft and Ohio Congressman Theodore E. Burton, in 1910 Congress approved construction of all fifty-four locks and dams required to provide 9-foot navigation the length of the Ohio. the bill called for completion of the $66 million project by 1922, but a mere $1 million was appropriated for the first year.

(Michael C. Robinson. “History of Navigation In the Ohio River Basin.” National Waterways Study 13 U.S. Army Engineer Water Resources. Institute for Water Resources. 1983.)

In the early 1950’s, the Army Corps of Engineers began replacing the old structures with twenty modern locks and dams with higher lifts, longer pool-reaches, and much longer lock chambers. Upon completion of Olmsted Locks and Dam and the removal of Locks and Dams 52 and 53, only nineteen structures will remain. But the way that enterprise at Olmsted has been progressing for the last thirty years; it may be the 22nd Century before the lock & dam is finally finished. (Allow time for audience laughter.)

(Capt. Don Sanders. “The River: From the Ice Age to Locks and Dams on the Ohio River, as told aboard BB Riverboat Belle.” Northern Kentucky Tribune. November 18, 2018.)

In 1963, a new group of 19 new dams were built which raised the level to 25' which allowed the passage of the bigger tows that were beginning to be used.

Since 2000, the longest duration of drought (D1–D4) in Ohio lasted 44 weeks beginning on July 23, 2002, and ending on May 20, 2003. The most intense period of drought occurred the week of September 4, 2007, where D3 affected 11.45% of Ohio land. 

 

1880's photo of the L&N Bridge -- Covington/Cincinnati, as originally built

Religious Exemptions For COVID Vaccine Mandates: Fake Or Real?

 

“The exemption has been used in recent years to skirt the vaccine law, causing many schools to fall below the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s threshold of 95% needed for herd immunity against highly contagious diseases like Measles, Pertussis, Tetanus, and Meningitis, among others.”

– Vaccination Alliance of Connecticut, a coalition of public health officials, parents and others

In Connecticut, so many parents claimed religious exemption from mandatory childhood vaccinations during the 2019-20 school year that 120 schools failed to reach vaccination levels needed for herd immunity against measles.

Connecticut no longer allow a religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and day care facilities, becoming the sixth state to end that policy.

(Susan Haigh. “Connecticut Is 6th State to End Religious Vaccine Exemption.” U.S. News. Associated Press. April 28, 2021.)

The First Amendment’s right to exercise freedom of religion has been reviewed by the Supreme Court repeatedly (Employment Division vs. Smith and Fulton vs City of Philadelphia), and time and again, as law professor Erwin Chemerinsky explains, the prevailing opinion plainly states that “as long as a law is neutral, not motivated by a desire to interfere with religion and of general applicability to all individuals, it cannot be challenged based on free exercise of religion.”

Requiring students to be vaccinated is applying law to everyone and it is not motivated by religion, but rather by public health; it typifies a neutral law of general applicability. This is why several other states have already passed legislation excluding religious exemption for vaccines.

From Measles To COVID

What is the latest legal battlefield of the pandemic? The answer is “legal exemptions,” and particularly “religious exemptions.”

Americans opposed to the coronavirus vaccines are trying to find ways around employer and government vaccination mandates. This is new territory for many employers navigating the issue, given how risky a proposition it is to allow unvaccinated employees to mingle with, and possibly infect, colleagues in the workplace.

Murky Waters – Defining a Legal, “Religious Exemption”

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, individuals have the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of religion. As part of their religious beliefs, many individuals object to vaccines. Employers are required to accommodate religious observances and practices, unless doing so imposes an undue hardship on the business.

However, “religion” is very broadly defined and encompasses not only organized religions, but also informal beliefs. “Religion” under the law can also encompass non-theistic and moral beliefs.

For example, in Chenzira v. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, 2012 U.S. Dist. Lexis 182139 (S.D. Ohio, 2012), the court recognized that veganism, in some circumstances, may constitute a sincerely held religious belief. That court exempted an employee from a flu shot requirement.

No major religious denomination in the U.S. opposes vaccination outright. But an individual's "sincerely held" religious belief does not have to be part of an organized-religion mandate to be considered a valid reason for exemption from getting the vaccine.

"It can be a personal, sincerely held religious belief which arises from the very nature of freedom of religion articulated in the First Amendment," said Domenique Camacho Moran, a labor attorney at New York-based law firm Farrell Fritz.

"The employer generally has to go with the idea that the employee's request is based on their sincerely held religious belief. But if the employer has an objective basis for questioning its sincerity, the employer is justified to seek additional information," said Keith Wilkes, an employment attorney at Tulsa, Oklahoma-based firm Hall Estill.

(Megan Cerullo. “What constitutes a 'sincerely held' religious exemption to a vaccine mandate?” MoneyWatch. September 13, 2021.)

The rules around religious exemptions for coronavirus vaccines vary widely as each state or institution often has its own exemption forms for people to sign. A religious belief does not have to be recognized by an organized religion, and it can be new, unusual or “seem illogical or unreasonable to others,” according to rules laid out by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

But such a belief can't be founded solely on political or social ideas. That puts employers in the position of determining what is a legitimate religious belief and what is a dodge. Employers must now try to distinguish between primarily political objections from people who may happen to be religious, and objections that are actually religious at their core – no easy task.

The rollout has prompted heated debates because of the longtime role that cell lines derived from fetal tissue have played, directly or indirectly, in the research and development of various vaccines and medicines.

Roman Catholic leaders in New Orleans and St. Louis went so far as to call Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 shot “morally compromised." J&J has stressed that there is no fetal tissue in its vaccine.

Moreover, the Vatican’s doctrine office has said it is “morally acceptable” for Catholics to receive COVID-19 vaccines that are based on research that used cells derived from aborted fetuses. Pope Francis himself has said it would be “suicide” not to get the shot, and he has been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer formula.

(Colleen Long and Andew DeMillo. “As COVID-19 vaccine mandates rise, religious exemptions grow.” Raleigh News & Observer. Associated Press. September 17, 2021.)

Religious objections, once used sparingly around the country to get exempted from various required vaccines, are becoming a much more widely used loophole against the COVID-19 shot.

An estimated 2,600 Los Angeles Police Department employees are citing religious objections to try to get out of the required COVID-19 vaccination. In Washington state, thousands of state workers are seeking similar exemptions.

(Colleen Long and Andew DeMillo. “As COVID-19 vaccine mandates rise, religious exemptions grow.” Raleigh News & Observer. Associated Press. September 17, 2021.)

The Wild and Woolly Battle of Exemptions

Some evangelical pastors are reportedly providing religious exemption documents to members of their churches, and right-wing forums are sharing strategies to skirt vaccination requirements. Religious freedom groups are sending threatening letters to states, schools and employers and preparing legal challenges to fight vaccination mandates.

One pastor is reportedly encouraging people to donate to his Tulsa church so they can become an online member and get his signature on a religious exemption from coronavirus vaccine mandates. The pastor, Jackson Lahmeyer, is a 29-year-old small-business owner running in the Republican primary challenge to Sen. James Lankford in 2022.

Lahmeyer, who leads Sheridan Church with his wife, Kendra, said that in just two days, about 30,000 people have downloaded the religious exemption form he created.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “My phone and my emails have blown up.”

Lahmeyer said he has not taken any of the three authorized coronavirus vaccines and believes they were created with aborted fetal tissue. (Developers of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines used cell lines from aborted fetal tissue to test whether the vaccines worked, but the vaccines were not developed from the same cell lines. While the Johnson & Johnson vaccine used lab-replicated fetal cells during its production process, the vaccine does not contain any fetal cells.)

Lahmeyer said he is not anti-vaccine, but he has already had the virus and believes that people whoare infected with it can be treated with medications like ivermectin, which is used to treat parasites in humans and horses. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says ivermectin should not be used to treat or prevent COVID-19.

(Sarah Pulliam Bailey. “This pastor will sign a religious exemption for vaccines if you donate to his church. The Washington Post. September 15, 2021.)

In Sacramento, California, a megachurch pastor is offering a letter to anyone who checks a box confirming the person is a “practicing Evangelical that adheres to the religious and moral principles outlined in the Holy Bible.” Greg Fairrington of Destiny Christian Church posts on social media about religious exemption letters have been viewed thousands of times. Destiny Christian draws more than 10,000 people between its online services and its Rocklin location.

(Robin Estrin. “Pastor offers exemption letters for COVID vaccination resisters.” Los Angeles Times. August 19, 2021.) 

 

The Bottom Line

Much of the present resistance to COVID vaccines tends to be based not on formal teachings from an established faith leader, but a blend of online conspiracies and misinformation, conservative media and conversations with like-minded friends and family members.

Some organized churches – including small Christian churches such as Church of the First Born, End Time Ministries, Faith Assembly, Faith Tabernacle, and First Century Gospel Church – rely on faith healing. Others, such as the First Church of Christ and Scientist (Christian Scientist) believe in healing through prayer and that vaccines aren't necessary.

In general, many evangelicals remain resistant to vaccination. Some 24% of white evangelicals said in June 2021 they wouldn’t be vaccinated, down from 26% in March, according to a study from the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonpartisan group that studies the intersection of religion and public life.

Evangelicals of all races make up about one-quarter of the U.S. population, and health officials say persuading them to get the shot is crucial to slowing the spread of the Delta variant fueling recent increases in Covid-19 cases.

The reasons for White evangelicals rejecting or hesitating to get vaccinated against the coronavirus are complex and not necessarily tied to religious doctrine.

Exemption requests are testing the boundaries of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for employees who object to work requirements based on religious beliefs that are “sincerely held.”

There is the rub – what is a “sincerely held” belief is an issue of individual credibility. The Supreme Court has never articulated a formal definition for religion. And, these things make it possible for anyone to circumvent the vaccine mandate.

How, exactly? In some states, the situation is more complicated. Most states explicitly authorize religious exemptions to vaccination, and sometimes philosophical exemptions as well – regardless of the government’s compelling interests.

Those state laws could not protect anyone from a federal vaccine mandate, and many of them only apply to certain groups – usually schoolchildren. But they could protect people from mandates from their state or local government.

So, what happens when the federal and state courts collide?

Douglas Laycock, Professor of Law at the University of Virginia, who has represented four clients in the Supreme Court who were seeking religious exemptions, writes …

“The Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the Constitution does not always require a compelling interest.

“Under the current law of the Constitution, people have no right to a religious exemption from a rule unless there is also a secular exception or gap in coverage that would undermine the government’s interests just as much. If there isn’t such a secular exception, the government doesn’t have to show any reason at all to refuse religious exemptions.

“Usually the only secular exception to vaccine requirements is for 'medical contraindications,' meaning that a vaccine would harm the recipient – for example, if someone is allergic to an ingredient in the vaccine.

“But these medical exceptions don’t undermine the government’s interest in saving lives, preventing serious illness or preserving hospital capacity. By avoiding medical complications, those exceptions actually serve the government’s interests.

“ … even when religious objections are sincere, the government has a compelling interest in overriding them and insisting that everyone be vaccinated. And that overrides any claim under state or federal constitutions or religious liberty legislation. It is irrelevant to state statutes that explicitly grant vaccine exemptions with no exceptions for compelling government interests. But federal vaccination requirements override those state laws.”

(Douglas Laycock. “What’s the law on vaccine exemptions? A religious liberty expert explains.” The Conversation. September 15, 2021.)

As for evangelical anti-vaxxers, they should be aware that prominent evangelical Christian leader Franklin Graham has repeatedly urged hesitant Americans to get vaccinated against COVID-19, warning that the pandemic is "not over" and that the novel coronavirus "could kill you."

"For me as a Christian, it's very easy for me to support the vaccine," Graham, the CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and of Samaritan's Purse, told CNN. "Because as a Christian, Jesus Christ came to this Earth to save life."

“I want people to know that COVID-19 can kill you," he continued. “But we have a vaccine out there that could possibly save your life. And if you wait, it could be too late.” Graham said that both he and his wife had gotten vaccinated.

(Morgan Gstalter. “Franklin Graham presses Christians: Get vaccine or 'it could be too late.'” The Hill. May 14, 2021.)

The Unvaccinated -- Filling Hospitals and Morgues During the Delta Surge

 

"More than 9 in 10 COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths occurred among people who are unvaccinated or not yet fully vaccinated. The share of COVID-19 cases among those not fully vaccinated ranged from 94.1% in Arizona to 99.85% in Connecticut.”

– CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky (Research – Kaiser Family Foundation

Cases of COVID-19 are again climbing fueled by the delta variant. The numbers of cases across Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana are causing alarm.

Ohio

Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, the new director for the Ohio Department of Health, said in a press conference on September 9, “While we’re not at an all-time high of cases reported, these numbers are certainly troubling."

"In early July, we were seeing daily case rates of 200 and 300," Dr. Vanderhoff continued. "Today, we’re seeing 20 times that. We also continue to see rising numbers of Ohioans tested for COVID-19 and increasing positivity rates, now hovering at a seven-day average of 13.3 percent.”

He also provided the following data to give some context behind the statewide spike in new COVID-19 infections:

• Statewide hospitals: One in seven patients in the hospital has COVID-19. One in four in the ICU is battling COVID-19. That includes more than 3,000 total patients with COVID-19, including more than 800 in the ICU.

• Rural hospitals: One in three patients has COVID. Half of all patients in the ICU have COVID-19.

• Compared to July: The number of patients admitted with COVID-19 was in the 200s with only 60-70 people in the ICU.

“Just one week ago, I was telling you I was troubled by the more than 2,500 patients in the hospital – and that number has now grown by more than 22 percent in just the last week," Dr. Vanderhoff said. "This hospital surge is largely being driven by unvaccinated Ohioans amidst our wave of cases from the dangerous, highly contagious delta variant.”

(Ryan Haidet 'These numbers are certainly troubling': Ohio health officials address COVID surge as positivity rate tops 13 percent.” WKYC – NBC. Cleveland. September 9, 2021.)

In 66 of Ohio’s 88 counties, fewer than 1 in 2 residents have received at least one dose of vaccination against COVID-19, which has killed more than 661,000 Americans since the pandemic began.

The low vaccination coverage, found via an analysis of state data from Sunday, indicates vast swaths of the state remain vulnerable to a surging, hyper-transmissible variant of the virus that causes the disease.

The vaccines are free to recipients and have been widely available to the public since late March, suggesting much of the population remains unvaccinated by choice.

With more than 3,400 Ohioans currently hospitalized for what is now a vaccine-preventable disease, there’s little evidence of a common cause in the body public to stave off the virus.

About 53% of Ohio students, many of them too young to legally receive a vaccine, attend a school with a mask mandate, according to Tierney. Conservatives who dominate the General Assembly called for lawsuits to stop Biden’s mandate. Some are pushing legislation to broadly weaken Ohio’s vaccination laws.

(Jake Zuckerman. “Only Delaware County surpasses national vaccine uptake average.” Ohio Capital Journal. September 14, 2021.)

Kentucky

Kentucky is setting records. Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement Sept. 7 that the state reported a record number of new cases from Aug. 30 to September 5, with 30,680 cases.

The COVID surge has led to so many patients at St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead that the workers are unsure how they'll handle the growing numbers when a medical team sent by the federal government leaves Friday.

The Morehead hospital, about 65 miles east of Lexington, is one of the hardest-hit due to the influx of Covid-19 patients. It's the largest health care facility serving 11 counties in rural northeastern Kentucky and -- as of last week -- was at 130% above capacity, according to St. Claire Health Care CEO Donald Lloyd.

"The only reason we are holding this lifeboat together is I have a federal disaster medical assistance team here, 14 people who have just been heroes to us. And, unfortunately, their deployment is over on Friday," Dr. William Melah, the chief medical officer for St. Claire Health Care, told CNN's Kate Bolduan on Monday. "I'm going to lose 14 health care professionals, and I literally have no idea what we're going to do on Friday."

Beshear said during a Covid-19 briefing on September 13 that hospitals in Kentucky are "struggling more today than at any other point during the pandemic." Because of this, Beshear said about 400 National Guard troops will be deployed across 25 hospitals in the state.

"This is, I think, the largest deployment for a health care crisis in our commonwealth's history," Beshear said. "Every hospital that they go to not only talk about how it's a morale boost, but it truly helps in the operation and it allows them to provide more care to more patients."

An "army of nursing students" is also being sent all over the state, the governor said.

(Amir Vera and Lauren Clabby Moore. “Overwhelmed Kentucky hospitals fear the worst as federal Covid-19 assistance is scheduled to leave Friday.” CNN. September 13, 2021.)

West Virginia

While West Virginia was an early national leader in vaccinations, the pace of shots has since dropped off. The state’s percentage of fully vaccinated residents – 39.9% – is tied for last in the country, CDC data shows. The Mountain State is last in the country in people vaccinated, and leading the nation in spreading the virus.

Case counts in West Virginia hit record levels, according to Hopkins data, reaching a daily average of nearly 1,800 per day. Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s Covid czar, said the most-recent surge has been more extreme and has happened more quickly than any of the prior waves.

As of September 13, West Virginia had 27,607 active COVID-19 cases.

For perspective, that's nearly the population of Parkersburg, which is 28,612 after the 2020 census.

"From a healthcare perspective and seeing what my team has been through, and what the healthcare community has been through, it is frustrating, because we're exhausted," Dr. Sherri Young with the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department said.

(Anthony Conn. “West Virginia last in country in vaccinations, leading nation in spreading COVID-19.” WCHS TV Charleston. September 13, 2021.)

 

The Unvaccinated

With only about half of the U.S. population fully vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, hospitals across the country are straining to respond to a deadly fourth surge of infections driven by the delta variant. Unless immunizations pick up, it's likely regions with fewer vaccinated residents will bear the brunt of the pandemic's coming days.

During the current delta-driven Covid-19 wave, Americans are being transported hundreds of miles from their homes because no nearby hospital has room for them. Some of them have even died waiting for medical attention.

In other words, US hospitals are being forced – in the middle of a public health emergency – to ration health care for their patients.

(Dylan Scott. “Americans are dying because no hospital will take them.” Vox. September 14, 2021.)

Who is driving the surge and filling the hospitals? The unvaccinated. The CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said last week “well over 90% of people who are in the hospital are unvaccinated.”

“Those who were unvaccinated were about four-and-a-half times more likely to get COVID-19, are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 11 times more likely to die,” she added.

Hospitals across the nation contacted by ABC News have echoed Walensky’s statement.

(Arielle Mitropoulos, Sony Salzman, and Brian Hartman. “More than 90% of COVID-19 hospitalizations are among unvaccinated.” ABC News. September 14, 2021)

Tracking hospitalizations by vaccination status is tough because only about half the states report that information and many share it in different ways.

However, an analysis of that data found that breakthrough cases in general are uncommon among the fully vaccinated and “the vast majority of reported COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. are among those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated,” according to a study released last month by The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit focused on national health issues.

Overall, the data found that breakthrough events are extremely rare among those who are fully vaccinated, and that the vast majority of reported COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in U.S. are among those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated. Some key highlights include:

• The rate of breakthrough cases reported among those fully vaccinated is well below 1% in all reporting states, with Connecticut the lowest (0.01%) and Alaska the highest (0.29%). Hospitalization rates among those fully vaccinated ranged from effectively zero (0.00%) in California, Delaware, D.C., Indiana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, and Virginia to 0.06% in Arkansas. Death rates were even lower at 0.00% for all but two states, Arkansas and Michigan, where they were 0.01%.

• More than 9 in 10 COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths occurred among people who are unvaccinated or not yet fully vaccinated. The share of COVID-19 cases among those not fully vaccinated ranged from 94.1% in Arizona to 99.85% in Connecticut.

(Jennifer Kates, Lindsey Dawson, Emma Anderson, Anna Rouw, Josh Michaud, and Natalie Singer. “COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Cases: Data from the States.” Kaiser Family Foundation. July 30, 2021.)

“The bottom line is this: We have the scientific tools we need to turn the corner on this pandemic,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House coronavirus briefing Friday. “Vaccination works and will protect us from the severe complications of COVID-19.”

The virus has killed more than 650,000 people in the United States, with about 1,500 average daily deaths September 3 through September 10 – a toll not seen since early March, according to data analyzed by The Washington Post.

I want to repeat – the unvaccinated are 11 times more likely to die. If you haven't been vaccinated, you are risking serious health complications, even death. The three vaccines show continued robust protection for all adults – greater than 82 percent – against hospitalization, emergency room and urgent-care trips.

Consider these facts:

Fact: 99.5% of the people who died from Covid-19 over the past six months were unvaccinated. – CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, July 1 White House Briefing

Fact: As of August 9, 2021, the CDC said there had been 8,054 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus – out of more than 166 million fully vaccinated Americans. That’s roughly .005 percent. – Politifact, Fact Checking Joe Biden’s Figure on Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths

Fact: Studies have shown that a person infected with the Delta variant of COVID has roughly 1,000 times more copies of the virus in their respiratory tracts than a person infected with the original strain. – CDC, Delta Variant: What We Know About the Science

Yet ...

The percentage of populations that have received at least one dose of the vaccine in the Tri-State is as follows: Kentucky 58%, Ohio 53%, and West Virginia 48%. That means 53% of the residents are totally unvaccinated.

To close, let me give one last warning to the unvaccinated. If you do not take the vaccine and become infected with COVID-19, you might not get seriously ill, but you may still carry it to some who could – your family, your friends, or other people at risk of severe illness such as those with heart or lung conditions, weakened immune systems, obesity, or diabetes.

That’s been the message all along. If you refuse the vaccine, you know this, and evidently, you are willing to take the responsibility for endangering others because nothing – not even proven strategies like masking and social distancing – can effectively prevent transmission and health complications like the vaccine.

I know most who still refuse to be vaccinated are not even practicing masking and distancing now. I pray you have a change of heart and join the fight against the pandemic by getting your shot. Despite your objections to the vaccine, you may want to rethink your view that the vaccine is riskier than the virus – much of that view depends upon your personal concepts of “the severity” and “the risk” and the risk “to whom.” I hope I have fully defined those abstractions based upon facts, research, and science. The choice is yours … so are the outcomes.

“Any suffering or death from Covid-19 tragic,” Walensky said. “With vaccines available across the country, the suffering and loss we are now seeing is entirely avoidable.”

– Dr. Rochelle Walensky, CDC Director