Ninety-five percent is a familiar number as it relates to the topic of COVID. Two weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Pfizer Inc. announced the results of a BioNTech study showing its BNT162b2 vaccine “to be 95% effective against COVID-19.”
This declaration proved to be as accurate as the claim that herd immunity would stop the virus, or that vaccines prevented the spread of COVID, or that natural immunity was not as effective as vaccines (or that masks or lockdowns work).
“Trust the science” wasn’t a polite recommendation. People were fired for non-compliance. Their businesses closed. They were socially castigated and excommunicated from families over health recommendations based more on control than evidence. Any hesitance to inject children with a vaccine on which there was no long-term data made you a right-wing conspiracy theorist. Ignorant. Selfish. Hateful. The demand for obedience turned a lot of normal folk into active anti-government, anti-media, and anti-Big Tech skeptics.
Which ought to make the latest data from The New York Times a prime topic or the conspiratorially inclined. The Times’ interactive COVID tracker, as of this writing, shows that the most vaccinated county in New Mexico also happens to have the highest per capita COVID fatality rate.
The honor goes to McKinley County, which is 95% “fully vaccinated” with 915 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents, the highest in the state.
For those still clutching their pearls over the misinformation campaign executed by the mainstream media at the behest of its corporate sponsors, this will come as a shock. How could the most vaccinated county have the highest COVID fatality rate?
The answer is simple and racist.
McKinley County is over 73% American Indian. It has the lowest percentage of White residents (8) in the state.
To ask why race matters would be rhetorical.
COVID, since its inception, has been a killer of the unhealthy, and American Indians, according to the CDC, “have higher rates of chronic diseases than other ethnic groups in the United States,” including diabetes and obesity.
Race, despite what we’re told, is not merely a color. It is a culture, a heritage, a genetic code. It has a history, traditions, values, and lore.
To reduce physical health outcomes down to the singular “racial oppression” is as ignorant as declaring that vaccines are a biological weapon to exterminate non-Whites.
We’ve known since the early days of COVID that only 5% of COVID-related deaths were “from” COVID, as opposed to “with” COVID. The CDC admitted in 2021–and maintains as of this writing–that 95% of COVID-related deaths were among people with additional comorbidity factors–“4.0 additional conditions or causes per death.”
The CDC director herself admitted that even among the vaccinated, comorbidities were a factor in 75% of deaths. She called this a good thing because it means COVID isn’t a significant risk for people who aren’t irredeemably unhealthy.
“The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75%, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”
—CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, “CDC Director was referring to vaccinated people when she mentioned 75% of COVID deaths were among those with at least four comorbidities,” January 21, 2022
So why’s it racist?
Because everything is racist, for one. For two, obesity rates and health problems among American Indians isn’t their fault.
Just as Black people looting Target is a rebellion against institutional racism, Indians, the mainstream media want you to believe, also have no personal agency. Depression, suicide, mental illness, and addiction–to drugs, alcohol, and food–are the logical result of destroying the spirit and culture of a people through forced assimilation. It’s a pity that America should seek to correct (read: “Indigenous People’s Day Is A PsyOp” for context).
Nonetheless, McKinley County proves that vaccinations won’t save you from COVID. Which, if you were paying attention early, you already knew.
The state as a whole isn’t faring much better.
New Mexico–despite a publicly funded vaccine messaging campaign, cash incentives programs, vaccination requirements as a condition of employment, and some of the most draconian and longest lasting lockdown policies in the country–currently ranks fourth nationally in deaths per million population, and sixth in confirmed case fatality rate.
- “New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection” — CDC, August 6, 2021
- “Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds” — NBC, February 16, 2023
- “Want herd immunity? Pay people to take the vaccine” — Brookings Institute, August 18, 2020
- “How we got herd immunity wrong” — StatNews, March 22, 2022
- “You’re not gonna get COVID if you have these vaccinations” — Joe Biden, CNN Town Hall, July 21, 2021
- “Effectiveness of Pfizer’s COVID-19 Booster Shot May Drop from 85% to 55% After 3 Months” — Healthline, April 30, 2022
Categories: COVID Counterpunch
The Conservative New Mexican 
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