Weekly COVID-19 Round-up - 4/29/21
River City Data No. 29
I am back with my full data reporting this week after data issues precluded this last week. I touch on rates of both new cases and hospitalizations (good news) and vaccinations (more cautious news). After breaking down these numbers, I share my interview with Caroline Fan about racism and hate crimes Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have experienced both before and during the pandemic. I have been horrified by these incidents around the United States, and hope you join me, not just in condemning this violence, but learning from Caroline about the challenges our AAPI neighbors face. - Chris
COVID-19 by the Numbers
Total cases in MO: 599,393 (+4,533 from last Thursday)
7-day average of new cases per day in MO: 647.57
Counties with the highest per capita rates (per 1,000) of new cases per day this past week:
Lewis (25.65 per 100,000), Madison (23.41), Lincoln (19.28), Perry (17.16), Chariton (17.04), Clark (16.81), and St. Louis City (16.75)
Total deaths in MO: 9,230 (+69 from last Thursday)
7-day average of new deaths per day in MO: 9.86 (+1.29 from last Thursday)
Percent of people initiating vaccination: 38% (+3% from last Thursday)
Percent of people completing vaccination: 28% (+3% from last Thursday)
Case and mortality numbers are current as of Wednesday, April 28th. Vaccination numbers are current as of Thursday, April 29th. Additional statistics, maps, and plots are available on my COVID-19 tracking site.
Illness Trends in the Past Week
After last week’s edition of Missouri data problems, we’ve had a comparatively quiet week. Rates of new cases remain low around the state, with just two counties (Lewis and Madison) above an average of 20 new cases per 100,000 people per day over the past week. The bumps both of these counties are experiencing so far, however, are quite modest.
The worst thing we can say about illness trends right now is that there have been slight overall increases in the last two months, particularly in the Missouri counties in both the St. Louis and Kansas City metropolitan areas.
These low rates of cases correspond to much lower rates of hospitalizations. For example, in two metropolitan areas, Jefferson City and St. Joseph, hospitalization rates hit zero in mid-April. Other metros are experiencing rates that are a fraction of what we saw during the late fall and early winter.
Here in St. Louis, the Pandemic Task Force’s data shows that these declines seen through mid-April in the HHS data above are being sustained through to the end of the month. The number of in-patients with COVID here has oscillated around 250 patients since mid-March.
Modeling from the St. Louis Pandemic Task Force and researchers at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that we may see these hospitalization numbers sustained through the summer or even increase slightly as new variants become more widespread.
These models, however, also show that there is a real risk of a third significant wave of new cases in July and August if we see a combination of new variants and restrictions that are lifted too soon. Existing research suggests that a resurgence in indoor dining, in particular, could contribute to such an increase, though gyms, cafes, hotels, and religious gatherings also could contribute.
Vaccination Trends in the Past Week
One of the best ways to help ensure that we do not experience a significant third wave of new cases this summer is to encourage vaccination. Though the phenomenon of breakthrough cases - people who experience a COVID-19 infection two or more weeks after their final vaccine dose - has been in the news, these are expected. No vaccine is perfect, and while more than five thousand such cases seem like a lot, these are lower rates than what we would have expected. The critical message is that the vaccines work, and the very best thing we can do to help Missouri continue to reopen is to get vaccinated.
New vaccination rates continue to be highest in a minority of counties in metro areas: St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbia, Springfield, and Joplin. The St. Louis metro (and outlying counties) have the highest concentrations of new vaccination rates.
I mentioned last week that rates of new vaccinations have dropped in Missouri. This remains a concern, though our statewide percentage of initiated vaccinations grew from 35% to 38%. A three percentage point change is more like what we had seen in weeks before last week. Hopefully, this represents a return to higher vaccination rates, and we can continue to get towards the numbers we need for herd immunity.
Weekly Interview
Caroline Fan is the Founder and President of the Missouri Asian American Youth Foundation. She consults for female-founded startups and has a background as a community, union, and political organizer. In 2011, the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum awarded her as one of a handful of AAPI women leaders nationally.
CP: I’ve really appreciated learning from your tweets about the racism Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been facing over the past year. I believe, however, that this racism does not emerge out of nowhere. Do you see what’s going on right now as connected to the past?
CF: Racism against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is nothing new. It has been encoded into law and policy in this country for over 150 years. It’s just that most people don’t learn about this history outside of ethnic studies courses or the occasional PBS documentary.
History repeats and ripples, so the current surge of anti-AAPI violence and hate is unfortunately nothing new. Chinese Americans were lynched on the West Coast a century ago, Japanese Americans were interned in camps in Arkansas and the West three-quarters of a century ago, Vincent Chin’s murder by white autoworkers using a Louisville Slugger in the 80s, and Sikh Americans have been the targets of hate crimes since before 9/11. This racism and xenophobia has been codified into the laws and court decisions of the United States from the Page Act and the Chinese Exclusion Act to Yick Wo v. Hopkins. Korematsu is still technically good law.
CP: I keep thinking about the piñata a restaurant in Eureka put up a few months into the pandemic. Based on what you’ve seen, was that an outlier locally in St. Louis or have there been other incidents as well?
CF: Thankfully, no other notable idiocy like that. But students in elementary school and above have sadly been called things like “bat eater” and worse. An anonymous survey of 75 junior high and high school students here found that 70% of them are concerned about increased anti-AAPI violence. A friend of mine saw 10 Chinese American seniors walking with each other in the park – they felt that there was safety in numbers. That said, for the most part, when we’re out walking the dog people smile at us.
CP: As you reflect on this, and the broader racism AAPI communities have faced recently, what lessons do you take away about where we are at as a society?
CF: It broke my heart to have to write 2 press statements in a month about mass shootings where Asian Americans (Atlanta) and Sikh Americans (Indianapolis) were the targeted populations. I feel like in the past year especially, I’ve been a part-time unpaid media monitor to ensure accurate depictions of our community.
Change is not linear. I’m relieved that Senator Hirono and my friend Congresswoman Grace Meng were able to get the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act passed in the Senate, and it should be passed in the House. But I’m equally perturbed that our Senator – Hawley -- is the only one to vote against it. Elected officials were the ones who magnified the calls comparing us to dogs in the lead up to the Exclusion Acts.
There are a lot of reasons that I’ve been involved in anti-hate crimes work for years but a lot of it stems from growing up in Skokie, Illinois where kids are taught Holocaust history in schools, and then experiencing a white supremacist shooting rampage as a teen. He murdered Ricky Byrdsong in my hometown. I was 18 when I understood that there are people in this world who will shoot folks because we look different from them. Our lives are considered less meaningful because some people dehumanize us. Or because some of us don’t speak fluent English. Look at the Toisanese grandmother who was attacked in SF, and how there are 3 paramedics assisting the white male attacker half her age, while no one tends to her wounds. If she were black, they probably would have shot her. We are not post-racial – there are many legacies of slavery that our country still struggles to overcome.
The fact that one party still routinely sponsors bills to overturn the Fourteenth Amendment or to claw back birthright citizenship and naturalization demonstrates that we have a long, long way to go. At the end of the day, I do believe that there is more that unites us than divides us, but we are at an inflection point in history. We have a democracy – if we can keep it.
CP: Changing gears a bit - something I’ve been watching closely is the vaccination rate of AAPI individuals compared to other groups. It is so much higher. I’ve wondered if this is a data quality issue, but am curious if you have any thoughts or insight into why this rate might be so much higher?
CF: The Pacific Islander (PI) numbers from the Census are very slim, and even when I’m using/analyzing Census data for voter turnout, there are times when the state PI data isn’t a number but an asterisk for “insufficient data.” Most of the states that have high PI populations, including Hawaii, Washington State, California, and Utah, report vaccine inequity and disproportionate rates of Covid deaths in those communities. The n is really small so it’s probably a sampling error.
In terms of the Asian American side, Kaiser Family Foundation has some helpful data, and we do see that in some states, AAPIs are getting vaccinated at rates above their population. My guess is that because Asian Americans are a disproportionate share of the medical field nationally (making up 1 out of every 5 doctors), the early rollout reflects the numbers of medical workers who were vaccinated at their jobs, and then friends and family members. Additionally, Asian Americans and first-gen were highly, highly sensitized about Covid-19 in the beginning. Especially for those who have family in other countries, we were some of the first to call attention to the need for masks, etc. Particularly here in St. Louis, which has 2/3rds of the AAPI population in the state, we canceled the majority of our Lunar New Year activities back in Feb 2020 when even NYC, LA, Vegas held in-person events.
However, because Asian American is such a broad category, it doesn’t show if there are particular groups like Hmong or Bhutanese refugees who might not be accessing vaccines at the same rate.
CP: Finally, what is giving you hope right now in terms of where we are at with COVID?
CF: It is phenomenal that we have more than one working vaccine which were developed and approved in record time. I’m glad that the Biden-Harris administration is working with India, and wish that this would extend to more countries. Trump really decimated public health funding domestically and abroad, and it’s great to see that being reversed.
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