Had what I thought was a fairly harmless conversation with my aunt and uncle yesterday about how I got vaccinated, to which my other aunt started screeching “It’s not a vaccine it’s a SHOT and you’ll still get sick you know that right?”
A few months ago she said this was fake and no big deal.
Another conversation at a friend’s house turned to the vaxx and the consensus was that it couldn’t really be trusted.
We’re never reaching 60+% vaccinated unless the govt makes a huge effort at educating people and reassuring them. Or, if private companies start enforcing vaccinations on employees/customers. People aren’t willingly gonna get this thing. I can just smell it in the air.
I don’t think there’s any Plan B. If the virus becomes a fact of life because people won’t get vaccinated, it will just become like climate change - a background crisis where a bunch of people insist on action and a bunch of other people insist the crisis is fake and we all go back to brunch.
Poland is struggling to cope with its highest number of new infections since the pandemic began - 60 times higher than at the start of the pandemic in spring last year - because of the rampant UK (Kent) variant of the virus.
Hungary now has one of the highest Covid mortality rates in the world, with more than 21,000 coronavirus-related deaths and a third wave claiming hundreds of lives every day.
And yet its speed of vaccination is among the highest in Europe. More than one in five Hungarians has had a first dose.
Czech authorities have pleaded with people to respect Covid restrictions over Easter. The plan is for children to go back to school in a week’s time, but they say that could be jeopardised if people mingle now in big numbers.
I had a friend who tested positive 16 days after her first Moderna shot (she works at a nursing home so is tested like biweekly). She remained completely asymptomatic.
I hate this, but it’s true. If we can get 70% of the population vaccinated, I’ll be shocked. And even then, there will be many, many geographies with <50% and zero mitigation, ripe for variants to form and propagate.
I hope conservatives are happy with the world they’ve made.
Nah, Plan A was always vaccinate as many people as possible and hope that gets Covid hospitalizations and deaths under control. I dont think any thought had been given to “what if we just get X more hospitalizations and deaths per 100,000 people forever”. But that will be on the table if they can’t find the right carrot/stick combo to overcome very powerful anti science beliefs in too many people.
Well if that was plan A then our state and federal leadership has certainly taken an interesting approach of doing absolutely nothing necessary to make that happen. I think we get things under control enough with our current approach that COVID ceases to be the organizing function of society, but expect meaningful cases and deaths in the background indefinitely. Not sure why the government would choose to not incentivize vaccination, not institute stricter NPIs to knock cases down, and not institute travel controls if they werent willing to live with deaths and cases in the background indefinitely.
Thanks, this isn’t for me but I work at a college and was curious because a lot of the students have access to get the 1 shot but can’t get the 2 shot yet. I assumed it’s best for them to just get the J&J right away if they can, but you all are much smarter than me on this stuff.
I think we need to spell out to the anti-vax people that they will have a window to get vaccinated. After that we’re taking the shots that were set aside for them and shipping them to Africa. Its a global pandemic. We’ll save as many as we can, whereever they are. You snooze, you lose.
I hear you, but not sure it is a completely credible threat and also has potential ramifications for the vaccinated depending on how the pandemic progresses from here.
Also seems like, at least initially, the plan is not to use government coercion to drive vaccination and to focus on outreach efforts as is standard for most vaccination programs.
I mean, I hope so. But if the hospitalizations and deaths go down to a level that won’t overrun hospitals then I don’t think there will be incentives like restrictions on border crossings, I think the governments will just cave and open up everything everywhere to everyone regardless of vaccination status.
