American Greatness runs an article comparing the Covid experiences of the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and Hillsdale County in south-central Michigan. Gibraltar is highly vaccinated, near 100%, while Hillsdale Co. is maybe 30%. They have roughly equal populations and have had roughly equal Covid experiences.
The author uses their different vaccination rates and similar Covid experiences to argue that maybe we should reconsider the importance of vaccination. The author teaches at Hillsdale College. It isn’t clear the author has ever visited Gibraltar, I have.
Gibraltar is densely populated, most of the open ground is on the “rock” itself and that is too steep to build on. It is a European city-state, its airport runway exists on land created by dumping fill extended into the bay. And it gets visitors from everywhere.
I have not visited Hillsdale County in Michigan, but maps make clear it is rural, there are no large cities nearby. It is not a tourist destination nor is it “dense” in the sense Gibraltar is. People in Gibraltar live cheek-by-jowl, in Hillsdale County social distancing comes naturally. It is small town America.
My conclusion: a comparison of Gibraltar with Hillsdale is apples and oranges. City living in Europe and semi-rural living in America have some points of similarity, but the differences are striking.
Science tells us we should always be ready to reexamine our conclusions when new data arrives, but the standard comparison is apples to apples. The comparison attempted in this article feels like the proverbial bridge too far.
