The COVID-19 outbreak in Provincetown shows the success of the vaccines

Coronavirus

“In fact, this is a demonstration of success by vaccines, but that was not the media story.”

Gov. Charlie Baker says “one of the biggest challenges” government leaders like him have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic is to accurately transmit and contextualize information about the evolving virus.

And during a speech Tuesday, the Massachusetts governor acknowledged that there have been times when “government leaders, health leaders, we haven’t all done a good job of describing what’s really going on.”

His main example: the now famous outbreak of COVID-19 in Provincetown.

The outbreak, which reached more than 1,000 cases among mostly vaccinated individuals, sparked headlines suggesting a “failure” of vaccines, Baker said, when “it was actually quite the opposite.”

“In fact, this is a demonstration of success by vaccines, but that was not the media story,” Baker said during a virtual speech Tuesday morning at the New England Council.

Baker said there were an estimated 10,000 people in the city of Cape Cod during the weekend in July when the outbreak began, a collision between the highly transmissible delta variant and one of the most vaccinated communities in Cape Cod. the state.

A popular getaway destination for the LGBT community, Provincetown hosts a number of holiday weekends during the month of July. However, as Baker noted, the rain forced much of the activity indoors over the fourth quarter of July.

“Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday: It rained all four days, so all the outdoor activity that was expected to take place was moved indoors,” Baker said. “Bars full of people, restaurants, nightclubs, hotel lobbies, the works. And a lot of parties in the house that people thought were going to be outside that were inside ”.

According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that led the agency to change its facial coverage guidelines, approximately three-quarters of cases associated with the outbreak were among people vaccinated in a city where it is estimated that more 90% of people had gotten the vaccine.

“Ultimately, the cluster was considered to be north of 1,000 cases,” Baker said Tuesday. And that resulted in real headlines across the country and in that region that said, you know, ‘OMG, you know, all these people went to this big weekend in Provincetown and they were all vaccinated and they went there are many cases out there. And frankly, a lot of people interpreted that vaccines don’t work.

“But the story is actually very different from that,” he added.

Although the outbreak showed that even fully vaccinated individuals could transmit the delta variant, it also demonstrated the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing the spread and, above all, of serious diseases due to COVID-19.

Baker noted that some infectious disease experts have estimated that the outbreak would have been about five times larger if no one had been vaccinated. In addition, there were only seven hospitalizations related to the outbreak, as well as one death in an immunocompromised elderly man.

“Everyone who has studied this issue says that there would have been, you know, a number that can’t even be calculated more in terms of how many hospitalizations there would have been if all these people hadn’t been vaccinated,” Baker said. . “And a gentleman unfortunately died. He was about 70 years old and was undergoing active chemotherapy.

Most news outlets have reflected this reality, but Baker says the outbreak complicated messaging efforts to promote vaccine effectiveness.

“In many ways, this has been one of the biggest challenges we have faced the government throughout this pandemic, trying to get not only the right message, but also the narrative arc of the long-term message, about what is right. , “He said.

Baker noted that the data on vaccine efficacy are “quite convincing.” A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that each state with an above-average vaccination rate also had below-average hospitalization rates, even amid this summer’s delta-fed rise.

“If we look at the states that have the highest vaccination rates (obviously Massachusetts, New England, and the Northeast would be among the national leaders), we have uppercase and lowercase letters per capita, but more importantly, we also have lower hospitalization rates and lower mortality rates than the vast majority of other states in the country, ”Baker said.

“And if we look at the states that have the lowest vaccination rates, they are the ones that are struggling with the highest number of cases, the highest hospitalization rates and the highest mortality rates,” he added.

Baker added that hospitalized unvaccinated people are also “usually much sicker than vaccinated people.”

“I wish there was a very simple and straightforward way to help everyone understand this,” he said.

For the past 18 months, Baker said there was “a lot of night where he didn’t sleep much” where he went downstairs and watched the British parliament debates on television – “something very crazy” – and he realized his frustrations about communication was also shared across the Atlantic.

“When the anxiety that the rest entails is endangered, it becomes a deeply complex conversation,” said Baker, who added that overcoming vaccine hesitation in addition to government distrust “makes us an exercise. very complicated and difficult messaging “.

That said, Baker added that he was “incredibly grateful” that so many people have been vaccinated in Massachusetts, “which has at least partially vaccinated more than 88 percent of adults, the country’s second-highest rate.”

“This is the way to get out of this and we will have to continue to focus on it,” he said.