why?

[mister_coffee]

I've noticed something odd these last couple of months.

In spite of fairly high vaccination rates in the state, our covid rates have remained stubbornly high. In fact, they are much higher than states with far lower vaccination rates.

So WTF is going on? This is weird and it has been noticeable for months now.

Just as a comparison, these are some state-by-state numbers:

Washington: Vaccinations: 58.3%, COVID-19 cases: 9.9 per 100,000
California: Vaccinations: 58.3%, COVID-19 cases: 2.5 per 100,000
New York: Vaccinations: 57.2%, COVID-19 cases: 3.0 per 100,000
Oregon: Vaccinations: 56.2%, COVID-19 cases: 6.9 per 100,000
Idaho: Vaccinations: 38.3%, COVID-19 cases: 6.2 per 100,000
Texas: Vaccinations: 45.6%, COVID-19 cases: 5.2 per 100,000

So what is going on?

I have a hard time believing that there is some weird artifact in the reporting that makes Washington look so weird.

I also have a hard time imagining that the vaccines are working less well here than in California or New York.

Probably the only pattern that kind of sticks out is that there is a bigger range in the vaccination rates by county in Washington than in other states, with a few counties well above sixty percent and a cluster of counties under thirty percent. But that still doesn't make that much sense because the COVID-19 rates in those counties isn't *that* high and those counties are all pretty sparsely populated (e.g. Ferry, Garfield, Pend O'Reille) anyway.

So it is a puzzle.