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Comment by chrononaut | Hacker News Reader

> The irony is, in the United States at least, a tick-proofing vaccine would be most useful in areas where the population has a relatively dim perspective on mRNA vaccines.

In what sense? The states most affected by Lyme[0] are generally the most (COVID-19) vaccinated in the US[1]

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/maps-recent.html

[1] https://covidactnow.org/?s=27521640

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Lime disease rates of infection and therefore risk is higher outside of cities. Of course dramatically larger populations have more cases. So you need to look at county level vaccination data which shows some dramatic difference between urban and exurban populations.

Garret county MD with a population density of 17 people per km2 is 53% vaccination for 12+ where Montgomery county MD 810/km2 is 94% for 12+.

Bedford county PA (19/km2) is 42% for 12+ where Chester county PA (274.9/km2) is 82% for 12+.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine... https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/datasurveillance/maps-recent.html

If you go outside of the urban areas in those states, you'll quickly enter many deep red areas. Take a look at where the largest outbreaks are occurring in those states, they're often the suburban and rural areas that are 45+ minutes away from urban centers.

Antivax for COVID is different, as it became a political sports contest.

Usually the groups who have low vaccination rates are more extreme religious groups. It’s usually not a big deal from a broader population perspective - the exception being measles.

Oddly we had the current President and VP also saying they’d never take a Trump vaccine[1]. So it’s truly very political for many people and not complete science based even when now they claim to adhere to science. To wit:

September 6, 2020: Kamala Harris says "I think that's going to be an issue" when asked if she would get an approved coronavirus vaccine.

July 28, 2020: Joe Biden suggests the coronavirus vaccine won't be "real" and may not be "safe."

August 6, 2020: Biden says the vaccine is "not likely to go through all the tests that needs to be and the trials that are needed to be done."

September 3, 2020: Biden asks "Who's going to take the shot? Are you going to be the first one to say sign me up?"

September 7, 2020: Biden said he would take the coronavirus vaccine "only if we knew all of what went into it."

[1] https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/campaign-press-rel...

As I recall, the context of those comments was in response to a purported attempt to fast-track any vaccine to be ready prior to the election. The Washington Post appears to have the same recollection [1].

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/05/scalises-...

The parent is copy/pasting from the linked press release from Trump which exclusively links to donaldtrumpcampaign.cmail20.com. They know they're arguing in bad faith.

They linked their source, and seem to be very transparent about their bias. How is that bad faith?

I'd assume the bad faith is in not mentioning the entire backstory. Lies by omission are still lies. :)

Sure, but the lies by omission might only exist in your head. There's no way of him proving that there's no omission, which makes it look like your argument is made in bad faith.

Haven't all the covid vaccines been "fast-tracked"?

You had this whole thing locked and loaded, it must have been so exciting when someone mentioned politics.

I have the shots. People who don’t are being either political or dogmatic or whatever and a few have legit reasons. But They aren’t the only ones whose beliefs are affected by politics where politics should not be part of the equation. This is an example to show its very political on both sides.

States aren't homogeneous, though, and rural people in blue states can be extra over the top in their performative Trumpism. For example, there's a good case to be made that California Republicans are much more focused on performative Trumpism than on actually winning elections.

There’s different cohorts of trumpists. Remember that he’s a demagogue/personality cult figure, with an orbit of parasites adjacent to him.

Rural people are lowercase conservative in general, but his real power base are blue collar low information nihilists. They see his vulgarity as “straight talk”. But the man isn’t conservative.

Somebody will figure out how to divide and conquer those groups.

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