It's the Herd's Fault

 

There seems to me to be a certain illogic in the insistent demands, by, for example, Justin Trudeau, that everyone get vaccinated. What is the premise here? 

There is probably a legitimate concern that the unvaccinated, if they all get sick, could overload the ICUs and the health system. Fair point—fifteen days to slow the spread. But aren’t the fifteen days up yet?

Beyond that, if the vaccines work, those who are vaccinated need not care whether the next person is vaccinated. If the vaccines do not work, why get vaccinated? 

If the failure by many to get vaccinated causes a “fourth wave,” those falling sick are presumably those who have chosen not to get vaccinated. Their bodies, their choice.

This is an oversimplification; the common claim currently is that those who have been vaccinated do run some risk of catching COVID, probably in a mild form. Still, we do not take such extreme measures against the flu or the common cold. 

I do not object to vaccine passports. I do not fear they are a wedge to take away our freedoms. Temporary suspensions of basic rights have happened in the past; in war, for example. Our historical experience has been that these do not endure beyond the emergency. In any case, is a vaccine passport really a greater intrusion on one’s rights than a driver’s license?

But do we really need them?

Perhaps the idea is to achieve “herd immunity”: get there, and the virus should die out. Unfortunately, the consensus is apparently growing among top doctors that, with the more virulent strains we now face, herd immunity is no longer possible. If perhaps 70% vaccinated was necessary for the original strain, the Delta variant is perhaps a hundred times more contagious. That puts the herd immunity threshold beyond the realistically possible—and for all we know, a more contagious form is going to appear. Reports are that one has emerged in South Africa that is twice as transmissible as Delta. The very fact that a fourth wave is gathering despite the high levels of vaccination in Canada, the eUK, or Israel tends to demonstrate that “herd immunity” is no longer a viable goal.

My suspicion is that leading politicians are so insistent that everyone get vaccinated because they need a scapegoat for the continuing high number of cases. If they do not focus attention on this scapegoat, people are likely, fairly or unfairly, to start blaming them. I fear they have a tiger by the tail: they cannot leave the restrictions in place forever. Yet they cannot drop all the restrictions and let infection rates rise without people questioning why the restrictions were there in the first place.