I never understood why the government thought that lifting the mask mandate for the vaccinated would result in more people getting vaccinated. The kind of people who won’t get vaccinated are the kind of people who would just stop wearing masks (if they ever wore them) the minute the mandates were lifted. I never got how this would incentivize them.
Anyway, I guess it was worth a try. It showed the respect that everyone insists we show people who refuse by putting them on the honor system and assuming they will act responsibly. They did not. And now we’re back to mitigation strategies because the unvaccinated have spread the new variant all over the place.
Josh Marshall had some words for those who are blaming the scientists for this:
But after yesterday’s updated policy or reversal I kept seeing comments on Twitter, headlines in OpEds and comments from people on TV saying, “That’s it!” “That’s the final nail in the coffin of the CDC’s credibility!” Or ‘the experts’ or Fauci or whoever else. “First it was no masks! Now masks are back! Which is it??!?!!?”
Really people need to get the f*#$ over themselves.
[…]
Today one of the most difficult things to make sense of is just how much we think the vaccinated themselves are at risk today from Delta – whether we’re defining that as infections generally or severe outcomes. One reason for the updated CDC guidance is increasing – but still tentative and uncertain – evidence that Delta COVID is spreading among the vaccinated themselves. But clearly the biggest beneficiaries of this new policy are the unvaccinated. It’s the unvaccinated among whom Delta COVID is spreading like wildfire. Infections among the vaccinated are largely spillover from that out of control situation. The unvaccinated are not only unvaccinated they are also disproportionately unmasked. (If you’re worried about COVID or trying to do your part for the larger community, let’s be honest: you’re going to get vaccinated.)
So we can see larger problem. Masking is coming back largely because of the actions of the unvaccinated and also largely for the benefit of the unvaccinated. The burden of non-vaccination is being placed on those who are vaccinated. That basic disconnect is our problem.
That disconnect places no effective pressure on the voluntarily unvaccinated while sowing demoralization and frustration and contempt with public authorities among those who’ve gotten the vaccine. No good comes of that combination. As I have been arguing, the cornerstone of our policy should focusing the burden of non-vaccination on those who are voluntarily unvaccinated. That is both the most equitable and fair approach and it is the approach most likely to increase the number of people getting vaccinated. We need to cut that cord of misplaced incentives and penalties.
That’s why I think the more important and more positive developments in recent days are the moves toward mandates. We’re seeing a wave of mandates for various kinds of public employees and health care workers to get vaccinated. We’re also seeing the federal government clear the way for private organizations to do the same. That is the proper path forward. We do not need to see it as punitive. It is simply placing the burden of non-vaccination on the voluntarily unvaccinated. This is also why speeding formal FDA approval of the vaccine is so important. Despite federal court rulings that appear to give employers the right to mandate vaccines under the current emergency approval, it is clear that only that formal approval will move the mass of the employers in that direction.
… for all the reasons above the best approach is not endless public discussion about understanding hesitance and resistance or persuasion. It’s mandates for vaccination. We’re not going to mandate for the whole population, though we should certainly have them for public-facing public employees and all health care workers.
But in every respect we should concentrate the burden of non-vaccination on the voluntarily unvaccinated. Want to engage in non-essential indoor public activities? Get vaccinated. This is both the most equitable and most effective way forward.
They tried the honor system. It didn’t work. Now the free riders need to understand that they have the “freedom” to refuse life-saving protection from this deadly disease but they do not have the freedom to spread it around to other people. It’s pathetic that we have free, safe, highly effective vaccines accessible to everyone and we have to go through this ridiculous effort to save peoples lives, mostly because of political brainwashing. But apparently we do. Just as the blue states bear the tax burden of supporting the red states — which hold them in total contempt, so too the Democrats are bearing the responsibility of trying to end this deadly pandemic in the US.
It’s infuriating.