Weekly COVID-19 Round-up - 5/7/21
River City Data No. 30
I’ve got a concise update this week after last night’s planned newsletter was derailed by some changes to the vaccination dashboard that took quite a bit of time to correct. The good news is that based on the experience of those corrections, I’ve got what is hopefully a much easier approach to maintaining the vaccination data and the possibility of expanding what I share in several ways. That will take a bit of time, however. In the meantime, I hope this belated and abbreviated newsletter provides enough context to tide folks over! - Chris
COVID-19 by the Numbers
Total cases in MO: 604,806 (+4,616 from last Thursday)
7-day average of new cases per day in MO: 659.43 (+7 from last Friday)
Counties with the highest per capita rates (per 1,000) of new cases per day this past week:
Lincoln (35.48 per 100,000), Iron (19.57), St. Louis City (17.94), Jefferson (17.4), Linn (16.41), Cedar (16.4), Crawford (15.89), St. Louis (15.11), and Jackson (15.0)
Total deaths in MO: 9,323 (+86 from last Friday)
7-day average of new deaths per day in MO: 12.29 (+2.57 from last Friday)
Percent of people initiating vaccination: 39% (+1% from last Thursday)
Percent of people completing vaccination: 30% (+2% from last Thursday)
Case and mortality numbers are current as of Thursday, May 6th. Vaccination numbers are current as of Friday, May 7th. Additional statistics, maps, and plots are available on my COVID-19 tracking site.
Illness Trends in the Past Week
The past week has provided us with another series of ups and downs in rural counties, especially in Northeastern Missouri and around Cape Girardeau. In both places, we saw short spikes followed by quick reductions. This is good news, of course.
This is good news, of course. However, it comes with a general slight decline in new cases in all three “meso” regions that I track rates across Missouri. In Kansas City, in particular, the decline has been quite notable.
The trend in St. Louis, however, masks a more nuanced series of changes. Rates of new cases have declined in Jefferson County and Franklin County relative to earlier in the month and have dropped slightly in St. Charles County. In St. Louis City and County, rates have been pretty stable as well. However, these declines are being offset by a sustained spike in new case rates in Lincoln County.
The jump in new cases has brought Lincoln County to a place where it has a 7-day average per capita rate that is nearly twice the rate of the next closest county (Iron). They are, therefore, the most concerning trend right now that I see with new cases.
Vaccination Trends in the Past Week
The trend in vaccinations this week can be summed up in one word - slowdown. Our initiated vaccinations two weeks ago showed a marked reduction. Things looked a bit better last week, but the slower rates appear to have returned. As I noted above, we saw just a 1% point increase in the total number of Missourians initiating vaccination over the last week. These new vaccinations are continuing to be contracted in the St. Louis metropolitan area (MSHP Region C) and, to a lesser extent, around Kansas City (MSHP Region A).
Who is getting vaccinated right now is also a key story. We see the continuation of another pattern I identified two weeks ago: higher uptake among Asian and Latino communities in Missouri. These groups continue to pull away from white Missourians in terms of per capita vaccination initiation.
This shift is underscored by polling, which shows that concerns about vaccination remain among white conservatives and evangelicals in addition to African Americans in Missouri. Increasing these rates among white and Black Missourians is critical to our future trajectory because of the size of these communities relative to other groups in Missouri.
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