Take a look at the Washington State maps above.
The map on the left shows the total number of vaccines by county within Washington State. Note the high number of vaccinations in King County region (by far the most populous county) compared to Eastern Washington (ex-Spokane).
The map on the right shows the percent of vaccinations in each county represented by a dark blue to light purple scale (a bad graphical choice I might add, since it doesn’t easily show the dramatic >5-fold variation in vaccination percentage). Mark the high percentage of vaccinations in the King County/Puget Sound Region.
Taken together, these maps falsely suggest to us, AT A TOP-LINE LEVEL, that Washington State is doing very well, one of the best states in the US preventing Covid—certainly not good “dating material” material for the Covid Delta variant.
But Covid doesn’t engage with a state at a top-line level! Rather, it engages with one person at a time, one family at a time, one town at a time, and one region at a time, and in that sense, Washington State is a tasty little treat ( not like those problematic states in the Northeast, such as Vermont).
In fact, if I was Covid, and my goal is to destroy the lives of as many Washingtonians as possible I would get a strong foothold in Eastern Washington to help me take another run at Western Washington. (By destroy I don’t just mean kill people. I also mean cause them long term physical and mental sequela—such as chronic fatigue and weakness in adults, or, even better, long-term cognitive problems in the super yummy <12 year-olds who are too young to be vaccinated right now. Also, if I were Covid, i wouldn’t forget to create economic havoc and I would enjoy decimating family finances with $100,000 ICU stays, shut down small businesses, etc),
So, if I am right, what are we to do?
Well, first off, I would recognize that we are two Washingtons, each one with its own strengths and weaknesses, and I would do everything I can to reach out to Eastern Washington’s greatest cultural strength, which I would describe as a frontier spirit, one based on self-reliance, independence—an apple pie, football, and patriotic ethos.
Second, I would suggest the creation of localized healthcare digital trust networks (in this case, composed of county hospitals, county health departments, county health clinics, regional fire departments, town councils, and the like) to coordinate and dominate the online messaging, with particular emphasis on the need and the duty to protect the most vulnerable—particularly the children under 12. Sure, the scientific arguments need to be in place, but most of the conversation needs to be about duty, honor, and patriotism to make many of these folks shift their behavior. ( I would suggest the way we are currently approaching Eastern Washington isn’t working because we aren’t simply asking them to get vaccinated; in their minds, we are asking them to change their entire belief system—that’s to heavy of a lift for a few randomized, controlled trials. That’s why I think it is necessary to directly appeal to their patriotic ethos instead: getting vaccinated is about duty—duty to family, duty to neighbor, and duty to country).