First, US vaccine refusers’ numbers are dropping. It was 30%, now down to 11% saying they definitely won’t.* Over 67% say they are already vaccinated (with at least one dose) or definitely plan to be. The remaining group are unsure.
Second, there have already been enormous commitments to getting vaccine to poorer countries. It’s not going exactly as planned, but the wealthier countries know that, for both humanitarian and national interest reasons, the bulk of the world’s population needs access to the vaccine. It looks like that will happen later than planned, but I’m betting it still happens.
That sounds like a recipe for the total collapse of the global economy and the bankruptcy of multiple major countries. I doubt the Powers That Be want it to get that far.
That said, it is a topic I wondered about, enough to post a thread that has gotten no traction. I realized too late that it could (and probably does) fit in this thread, so I repeat the OP here:
So the vaccines have apparently not been having a huge impact on numbers lately. Then there’s all the freaking out about variants. So I was wondering what your opinions were on the basic issue: how far do you think America / the world will lose progress on the virus? What measures will be needed to save lives? And more importantly, to what extent do you think those measures will be followed?
Because I’ve been thinking that anything less than New York in March is going to meet with a lot of resistance, to the extent that attempts to shame the resisters as selfish won’t do much practical good in the end. That led me to wonder if even highs in hospitalizations and deaths worse than anything we’ve seen so far would be sufficient to scare people into compliance. That led me to wonder if that was likely, or even possible.
So with all those questions unanswered in my mind, I thought I’d toss it out to y’all.
That’s a little bit of a misstatement (reported in the media) of a February poll which said a third were outright saying they weren’t going to get it - the 50+% included folks that were hesitant, while 49% were absolutely going to get it.
But a more recent poll suggested the number of people who are completely unwilling had shrunk by then to about a quarter of the adult population. Basically the number of flat-out refusers seems to have been slowly but steadily shrinking for months. Which is very good news - education is having some impact at least. It’s still wayyyy too high and way too regional. Were I live in the great dark blue bubble folks are scrambling to get vaccinated, some other areas less so.
We can perhaps live with a quarter refusing - 75% vaccinated might be enough, with a big emphasis on might, to achieve a reasonable level of herd immunity. But I’m hopeful those numbers will continue to shrink as doctors continue to patiently nag their patients and no one comes across any vaccinated person that has been tracked by black helicopters and/or turned into a liberal zombie overnight.
ETA: Ah, ninja’d with a different poll(s) reference.
And, unfortunately, the % vaccinated might stall at 75% or whatever, but natural immunity will continue to climb as the unvaccinated get sick. So, I think herd immunity won’t be too far off once everyone who wants to be vaccinated, is.
I can see things getting complicated if we need annual boosters or similar, based on how bad the shots make you feel. I can see people declining boosters to “play the odds”, gambling on not getting sick vs. the perceived sure thing of feeling crummy after a booster. (If that’s the case.)
I agree that my comment about 50% refusing was/is a bit of hyperbole. Right now. But …
Pretend that Trump had won in 2020. What do you think the refuser rate would be today if the last 6 months had been the same ongoing harping that masks & COVID are libtard bunk? And the same shambolic mess with the WH interfering with the CDC and the rest of the Federal bureaucracy was still going on?
If the disease does have worldwide staying power measured in years, we will be going through elections in 2022 and 2024 where COVID and public health versus private profit & convenience will be an irresistable wedge issue with massive traction on both sides. It will be weaponized by the forces of RW propaganda.
I think that just based on the wide ranging reservoir of infections worldwide we will see ongoing mutations that will require reformulated vaccines regularly, albeit not necessarily annually. Rapid mutation is really the secret sauce of viruses as a quasi-life form; it’s what they do best. Which means that COVID vaccination will be a recurring issue.
As @eschrodinger wisely says, the “first world” will eventually get behind helping to vaccinate the “third world”. So far it’s most pious hot air, but eventually as our own populations become as vaccinated as they’re willing to be that will free up production, budget, and political bandwidth to help our fellow man elsewhere. Net of nonstop campaigning by know-nothings that every dollar spent elsewhere is just theft from hard working Americans in blue jeans with rural accents.
My post above and this one are not meant as a hard and fast prediction of what will happen. But it is a prediction of what might reasonably happen.
The idea that COVID truly vanishes like SARS or MERS did is simply fanciful once half of humanity has or had it. Measles has been around for centuries or millennia. In centuries prior everyone had it and thereby got lifetime immunity. Yet still it runs roughshod over the unvaccinated populace today. And vaccinating kids for measles remains controversial among 5-10% of the public with a further percentage being actively recruited by the online media forces of anarchy and ungovernability.
True, but you also speculated that there would be continuing, “never-ending” restrictions, and that, at least for me, is what I was responding to. As I said, I am seriously skeptical that would happen, even if we got back to height-of-pandemic levels (and even then I’m iffy). Economies would collapse. People wouldn’t stand for it, and it’d become harder and harder to paint them as ignorant selfish conservatives the longer it went on. I mean, yeah, measles still exists, but we aren’t closing down borders and businesses because of it. Even if it were possible, I just don’t see it happening.
Your scenario won’t hold. Long ago I said and recognized that restrictions had a shelf life, only so many bullets in that gun. A year, two years from now, the shock value will go away, it is even now. People won’t be reading the click bait stories any more. They will just live with it however they can.
If Covid is at the same level, it will be more on the individual what to do. Some will take the risks, others won’t. You do you, as they say. But people won’t continue to live like this. I never thought that was possible.
well I’ve heard say a covid shot will probably be like a flu shot …you’ll need one every year or two because of variations and they’ll be so standard you’ll be able to get them anywhere and totally subsidized just like a flu shot is for most people
It’s 2022. The pandemic is still underway. A faster-spreading but less dangerous variant currently prevails. We now have vaccines. But not everyone agrees to take them.
Now what are your pandemic predictions? (Particularly: when will it end?)
So interesting to read this thread from the beginning, where some people were positing that it’ll never completely “end”, and that some attitudes and behaviors will persist possibly forever.
(When’s the last time you hugged a random acquaintance to say hello? That ain’t comin’ back fo’ me!)