Maybe the bad press that the J&J vaccine had resulted in some people being skeptical of any of the vaccines?
People don’t usually know in advance which vaccine they’ll receive when they go to a vaccination site, and some may not have recently wanted to go to the effort of finally nailing an appointment only to find out at the last moment that they’d be getting the J&J – which they might not want. This may even be true of the walk-in sites, where there may still be a long wait in line.
Also, the simple fact that so many people have already received vaccinations, coupled with the fact that there are indeed a lot of anti-vaxers out there, may mean that the numbers of those who still want to get vaccinations has dropped off.
Only about half of the population gets the annual flu vaccination, so it might not come as too big of a surprise that those who don’t get the flu shot may also shun covid vaccination. Lucky for them that the rest of us are getting vaccinated.
Those of us who’ve been vaccinated, plus those who have actually had the covid and recovered, may soon (hopefully) establish communal herd immunity in spite of those who refuse to get vaccinated. They’ll be the gloating, free-loading beneficiaries of the rest of us that did the right thing and got the shot(s).
There is already data out that your immunity, if you only got infected earlier, will be significantly shorter than those who got a vaccine (and particularly for those who were asymptomatic). So hoping that we get herd immunity soon if not significantly more people get vaccinated is quite unrealistic. In addition, and perhaps even more important for all of us, the key “reaction vessel” for a virus to mutate are non-vaccinated people - if many people stay unvaccinated in the US we won’t reach herd immunity and the number of cases will stay still very high (as it does currently) and it is only a matter of time until we “generate” a mutation in the US which will evade the current vaccines and we all will be back at home.
That’s unfortunate, and hopefully he’s now OK. If it was actually a cause/effect result from the vaccination, it’s exceptionally rare. The benefits of all three vaccines approved in the US vastly outweigh their vanishingly small risks.
He came around . I’m one of those who is just not sure . I live in a small mountain community. I basically don’t go anywhere. I used to get the flu shot every year . I got the flu every year . I stopped getting the flu shot 2 years ago
I haven’t had the flu since . Coincidence or fate I don’t know . I’m just going to sit on the fence for a while. I’m not against it .
As we have seen so far in this pandemic that the appearance of mutants (which already start to evade the vaccines more and more) definitely doesn’t take years but only a few months. If we will be stuck at 60-70% of vaccinated people in the US (which isn’t enough for herd immunity) it is just a question of time until we “breed” the “right” mutant.
I think there are only a few options available to “convince” people - either paying a small amount of money (e.g. $500 once you got both shots) or more and more airlines, concert/sport venues, bars, restaurants, museums, other countries etc. only allow people in with a proof of vaccination.
Yes. Everyone puts a mask on to go inside a grocery store or a drugstore – because they have to.
Similarly, if proof of vaccination were required for the kinds of places you mentioned, it would be a strong incentive to get the shot: Either vax up or stay out.
I have some logistical/technical questions about implementing a “vaccine passport”, but I don’t have any problems with the general concept.
… more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever. … It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon.
Quoting from the NYT article, this is probably the most likely scenario:
If the herd immunity threshold is not attainable, what matters most is the rate of hospitalizations and deaths after pandemic restrictions are relaxed, experts believe.
By focusing on vaccinating the most vulnerable, the United States has already brought those numbers down sharply. If the vaccination levels of that group continue to rise, the expectation is that over time the coronavirus may become seasonal, like the flu, and affect mostly the young and healthy.
Annual shots targeting the most prevalent variants will likely become the norm. If the covid then impacts no more people per year than the flu, we should be able to manage it in the same way as the flu. No restrictions, no masks, just ongoing vigilance by the same portion of the population that normally gets flu vaccines each year (typically about half of us, and particularly older people).
One of the bigger problems are the variants - the higher the vaccination rate the less chances the US creates variants which evade the vaccination. With the current vaccination rates it is just a matter of (short) time until we will “create” a variant which will be significantly more deadly and will force all of us back in the SIP mode - some experts expect that could already happen within a year. So your annual shot won’t help if not more people than 50-60% are taking in it - and the outcome will effect all of us not just the selfish idiots who aren’t willing to take a shot.
Of course but if the US will be the country with one of the lowest vaccination rates we will increase the chances that a new variant will start in the US (and ultimately affect the world) quite significantly