During his prime time address Thursday night, President Biden set out two key dates: May 1st, when he plans to direct states to make all adults eligible for COVID vaccines, and July 4th, when he expects the country to be able to fully reopen.
I have some concerns about this timeline.
First, even if enough vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson and Johnson are available for all Americans by May 1st, defying the agreed upon timetable of approximately 700 million doses distributed by the end of May, we still have the major issue of vaccine compliance.
In fact a recent Monmouth University poll found that 25 percent of Americans will still refuse the COVID vaccines.
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If non-compliance or vaccine hesitancy persists, that presents two major problems for the Biden administration.
First, we will end up with hundreds of millions of doses more than we need, at a time when the rest of the world is vaccine-starved. Even if we manage to finally contain COVID-19 here, we need to defeat it in the rest of the world to ensure public health.
Second, and even more disturbing, is the thin comma between the president’s two dates, May 1st and July 4th. He was clearly implying that your ability to attend your family’s July Fourth barbecue directly hinges on your taking your vaccine in the interim.
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Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of these three vaccines, I believe they are all incredibly effective and safe. Not only that, but I believe that having taken both doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that my risks of either acquiring or transmitting COVID are close to zero and that I should feel free to head back in the direction of normal life.
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But what I don’t believe is that people should be forced or coerced to take the vaccine. They should be reasoned with, their fears overcome. They shouldn’t be subject to an if A then B contingency. People should be able to go to a barbecue now, following public health precautions, but not wait until July Fourth.
The death rate from COVID-19 (approx. 0.4 percent but probably much lower given uncounted cases) is far too low to mandate vaccination. And re-opening can’t be delayed in any case, as case numbers and hospitalizations have declined dramatically since January, because of the tremendous cost to our economic, mental, and physical health.
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A new survey from Fair Health showed almost a doubling in mental health concerns among our teens from last spring to this spring. Our children are suffering from excess constrictions and restrictions, which means we are all suffering.
In March and April 2020, mental health claim lines for individuals aged 13-18, as a percentage of all medical claim lines, approximately doubled over the same months in the previous year. At the height of the spring wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this rise in mental health claim lines amounted to 97.0 percent in March and 103.5 percent in April.
Perhaps there is one more way to look at it which might encourage vaccine compliance without appearing as a form of coercion. Perhaps we should all accommodate to the reality that unless we take a vaccine, governors and mayors (especially Democrats) are going to continue to fear monger and saber rattle, locking us down, closing our children’s schools and gyms and restaurants, limiting our freedoms.mar
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The vaccine is a tool or a public health weapon against the virus which argues well for reopening. It is so much more effective and safe than we had hoped that it argues on its own for relieving the shackles, the ties that bind us in fear of this virus.
Take the vaccine not because the president tells you it’s the right thing to do, but because public health says so, because I say so.