And you think people with healthy immune systems and one full dose of the vaccine are the ones filling up the morgues and ICUs right now? I’d love to see the science on that.
I know that navel-gazing government Mandarins are always the enemy in Bobo-land, but at some point you do have to acknowledge the reality that these anti-vax idiots are the ones filling up hospitals right now.
I will certainly acknowledge that the antivaxxers are the ones filling up the hospitals and the morgues at the moment. It’s not completely clear to what extent that will continue to be the case. Countries with better vaccine uptake than us have still seen upticks in hospitalization and death, so things could get worse though. (And of course symptomatic breakthrough cases can infect unvaccinated folks too.)
None of that really justifies publicly announcing a decision and then having the FDA pretend to have a process to make the same decision. If the call has been made and literally every single person at the FDA knows the vaccine is safe and effective, just stamp the fucking paper and get back to working on the vaccine authorization for kids. (Or just stamp that paper too and leave early for a round of golf.)
Uh, yes it is. Actually, that’s one thing we do know: the unvaccinated are going to continue to be driving ICU overcrowding.
What isn’t at all clear is how much good giving a third jab to healthy people will do. Pfizer submitted Phase 1 data on boosters on Monday and yet you’re crowing about morgues being overcrowded because the FDA isn’t rubber-stamping vaccine safety studies. And we both know you’ll be the very first person in here yelling at incompetent govt officials if we find there’s any negative health consequence to getting these boosters.
Also this. These vaccines have a limited shelf life. If we’re not going to use them on the unvaccinated, it gets pretty obscene to start giving out Round 3 when the rest of the word is waiting for Round 1.
We promised the vaccinated a fast return to normalcy. Boosters are a lot easier sell than, hey, gonna need restrictions on life even for the vaccinated for a number of years.
But we need to protect against new variants in order to actually have any reassurance of a return to normalcy. One shot in the arm of an unvaccinated person on the other side of the world still helps me personally in a small way: maybe not quite as much as a shot in my own arm, but it certainly helps me that there’s one less potential mutation reservoir out there. When considering the impact on human health in total, it’s not remotely close. The unvaccinated are helped so, so, so much more than giving boosters to the vaccinated.
Same folks who don’t believe the vaccine has been adequately tested are more than happy to take any and all possible cures, regardless of how dubious. There is no rationalizing with them.
I’m not advocating for the policy, I’m saying it is politically an easier sell than other alternatives. Your alternative involves masking and mitigation for an extended period while we vaccinate non Americans and doesn’t bring normalcy by the 2022 elections (this might not either, but we might catch a normalcy wave like we did for May/June). I’m guessing the Biden team has decided that was politically untenable and, frankly, they are probably right.
I mean, we will have no semblance of normalcy until the vaccine is approved for kids 2+, so we’re all biding our time masking until then. Might as well keep manufacturing the shit out of the vaccine and giving it to other people until then.
I’m not defending the policy, like most things COVID it is absurd. That said given the increased push towards vaccine requirements I will probably take one.
Also don’t reallly agree with your take
on normalcy. That’s probably true for most in here (and even in here people got mad over having to wear masks post vax) but most adults not masking and acting normal now, those vaccinated and still taking precautions are the minority. I’m also not convinced that we don’t have sort of a de facto policy of all kids under 12 just get natural immunity. The south certainly does and, if we open schools and don’t vaccinate kids until mid winter, the country as a whole does.
Mask requirements went into effect last Friday for every store I visited, and adults with children under 12 who care about the pandemic are not some negligible portion of the population. My Facebook feed and this thread are full of parents losing their shit over schools not doing mask mandates. It hardly seems likely that these people are acting all “back to normal” except for schools.