your concerns...also discussed our own family interaction 'protocol' for the near future, which I'll share...remember, I'm not a Doc and may not have communicated effectively enough, plus we didn't spend a whole lot of time on it...but here goes...
>As to the delta's in outcomes between KY and NJ...it "depends"...
- 'Front Line' workers with lots of random interactions in closed environments and living in multi-generational households are at higher risk for disease.
- Co-morbidities are a significant factor, as you probably know already...often, lower income FL worker households are at higher risk for hospitalization and death.
- Hard to give you an answer w/o some 'deep diving'.
Note: I took a quick look at the attached link (Johns Hopkins COVID data sets) and saw that Kentucky has an overall case positivity rate near 10% and a couple of counties with rates of over 300-400 per 100,000 population...way higher than what is found in NJ (e.g. 48 per 100,000)...you might want to use that data for a personal assessment.
>Our Family Protocol...
Since my wife and I will have completed the Moderna regimen in mid-April, we asked if we could spend more and closer time with family after that...the response..
- so long as we stay in our current "bubble" (i.e. very rare interactions with others, regular masking, social distancing, etc.) we're okay to mingle...should we break that 'social contract' (i.e. gather with others of unknown "pedigree"), we need to re-establish our "bubble" for ~2 weeks, then return to those interactions.
- Reason for all this?...there are non-vaccinated family members involved, including kids...while the kids are at extremely low risk for fatalities, they can still get sick and/or become spreaders to other un-vaccinated and more vulnerable people. BTW, you may have seen recent reports of COVID-infected children who have 'long-term' morbidities (on-going problems with breathing, headaches, etc.), so this is not a 'binary' issue (life/death) are the accounts are significant in number.
Hope this helps...
Link: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/new-jersey