[not_a_moth]

We'll unlikely reach said number because over 50% of the population of the us is not interested in a vaccine because they do not view covid-19 as a disease much more risky than the flu.

Facing this reality, the policy will probably be once everyone who wants it has had a chance to get it, things will or should move towards normal.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The number of people interested is up to 66% now (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/21/poli...), and I think there’s good reason to expect it to keep rising as the rollout continues. It does seem likely there’ll be an awkward in between period where we don’t have quite enough takeup but the vaccinated people demand to go clubbing, but I don’t expect it’ll be too large.

[remote_phone]

The number of people in the US interested in getting vaccinated is very high, especially compared to Europe where it’s something like 20% in France.

[satellite2]

It's 59% of people interested in getting the vaccine in France.

https://www.ipsos.com/fr-fr/59-des-francais-prets-recourir-u...

[balia]

At some point, we have to let these people choose. You can only protect people from themselves to a certain degree

Once the sane ones are vaccinated, open everything up and let nature take care of the dumb ones. If you insist on drinking gasoline, good luck

[lsiebert]

The people who don't get the vaccine aren't just hurting themselves. We need herd immunity for people who can't take it, or for whom it won't benefit.

There are definitely people who may not benefit as much from the vaccine because they are immuno-compromised for example.

The only reason not to take it is if your doctor tells you not to. Unless they've told us not to for medical reasons, we should take it if we can get it, ASAP.

And I think pressuring people to take it is appropriate, given that it's not just them at risk.

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/who-can-and-cant-safe...

[twelve40]

Apparently the post you're replying to is not very popular. But I think both yours and that post make valid points that don't even contradict each other. Because even if we pressure people to do the right thing, after all, this is presumably a free country and there seem to be plenty of people (quickly scanning this thread for percentage quotes, dangerously close to ruining the presumed herd immunity level) who will refuse - or neglect - to comply. But what can really be done about this?

Pressuring in form of awareness efforts will take probably years, and who knows how many deniers will even get it. I'm starting to read posts and "studies" about paying people off, which I think is insane - (1) the whole idea of people who want to fix this problem actually having to bribe via their taxes those people who refuse to accept reality, and (2) payoffs can simply be abused in a million ways - but whatever, say we all take one for the greater good. But then even a large-scale payoff effort will also take months if not years.

What else can you do to pressure people? Restrict their rights until they get a shot? Tell them their kids can't go to school until they show a QR proof of vaccine? Realistically, just how can you pressure people if you are not in North Korea? So then we're back to everyone on lockdown because of the stubborn few?

[danielheath]

In Australia, there are daycare subsidies worth ~50% the cost, gated by kids getting vaccines or a doctors exemption.

That largely works pretty well at keeping the pool of deniers down to the true-believers; it turns out that many anti-vaxxers give up their beliefs when it becomes personally inconvenient to hold them.

[lsiebert]

If your normalize getting it done and exclude people who don't from opportunities, you incentivize people who want to participate, not just in receiving the benefits, but in participating in the group.

I think of it much the same way I think of driver's licenses. I believe if you are driving on your own private property you don't need one. But if you are using public roads and putting people at risk, there's an expectation of training and the ability to revoke permission if you harm others.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Don’t forget the collateral damage of vulnerable people that cannot take the vaccine for whatever reason. Australia just passed for ages 16 and up, no idea if people under that age with other conditions are SOL or if they’re allowed to bypass that restriction. Fortunately, the population here are generally pro-fax, I assume to the point where herd immunity is actually viable.

[chrisco255]

For large portion of the population, it isn't. 99.9+% for many demographics. I'm not interested in it personally, as one of my dad's coworkers got Bell's palsy from the vaccine. Given my age and risk profile, the vaccine isn't worth it.

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Nevermind the people who you infect and kill, you can’t be blamed for that, right?

[nanis]

> Nevermind the people who you infect and kill, you can’t be blamed for that, right?

This is a new standard. Even though the flu is very dangerous in small children, adults who mix with adults in work settings while infected with the flu have never been held to this standard. And since everyone might carry something that might be dangerous to someone under the right circumstances, I never wanted to go down the road of locking people up just in case someone somewhere may possibly be spared an infection.

Keep in mind that solitary confinement is an additional punishment for most inmates in most prisons in the world. Yet, that has been inflicted on people without so much of a second's thought to what the costs are.

So, by your standard, nevermind the kid who kills himself because he has now been put in solitary due to forces completely out of his control. Or, the grandmother who lives in another country who may be spared a SARS-Cov2 infection, but lost most of her mental faculties due to lack of contact with other human beings.

Do you think the only bad thing that can happen to someone is a SARS-Cov2 infection?

If not, they one must take into account how much of one bad thing one is willing to tolerate in return for a given reduction in some other bad thing. Because the probability of some bad thing happening to someone is 100%.

[eitland]

Your statement seems to imply that the current vaccines prevent the spread of the virus too.

Do you know this is verified yet?

It was in the news today and it didn't seem like it was known yet here in Norway. I think we are using the Biontech vaccine.

And, FTR, yes I'm generally pro vaccines.

[corin_]

There's no evidence yet (that I'm aware of) which is why experts are very cautious against giving false hope.

But based on past vaccines for other viruses and the way they and the covid vaccines help your body be better prepared to fight the virus, it's a reasonable guess that they may well at least limit spread, perhaps even close to prevent it.

So you're right to point out that it's not a sure thing, but I (admittedly, not an expert, but basing on views of experts) also think it would be more surprising if the vaccines didn't slow spread at all, the bigger question will be to what extent (both with and without current protective tools like masks and social distancing).

[hsbauauvhabzb]

Even if there is no reduced spread, reducing load on hospitals has got to be a good thing. That’s assuming the vaccine doesn’t increase spread (where I’m assuming a reduced likelihood of symptoms)..

[odessacubbage]

why is it the the responsibility for low risk individuals to put their lives on hold indefinitely so that high risk individuals can live recklessly? the elderly and the immunocompromised were at risk long before covid and they will be at risk post covid too. i cannot stop boomers from being dumb and selfish and acting with utter disregard for their own safety and 10+ months operating with an excess of caution and doing everything right were rendered utterly meaningless because they got me sick.

[loveistheanswer]

If someone were to transmit covid to me and I ended up dying, I would not blame this person for my death, unless they had acted with malice and purposefully infected me by spitting in my drink when I wasnt looking

[chrisco255]

I don't infect and kill anything. I'm not a virus. What kind of demented logic is that?

My uncle got the vaccine, and then a week later his family comes down with Covid, including him. They did fine, but it's not a guaranteed thing.

This particular vaccine isn't even a vaccine in the traditional sense, where they give you an inhibited version of the virus and let your immune system work on it. It's an mRNA cellular protein booster that is supposed to help fight it. It's all pretty new.

[corin_]

The fact that it's mRNA isn't really relevant to how your body fights the virus, it's still the same mechanism.

The traditional way (as used by the Oxford/Astrazenica covid vaccine, and others) is to show the body what the virus looks like by giving it non-harmful bits of protein that look like the bit of the virus the immune system will need to recognise.

The mRNA ones (like Pfizer's or Moderna's) use mRNA code to tell your body to create those harmless proteins, and then the rest is the same - your immune system learns to recognise them, which is good because it will be more likely to recognise the real virus.

The mRNA technique is just moving the "create these harmless things" from the lab to inside the body. It doesn't change how your body fights the virus compared to traditional vaccine methods.

(mRNA vaccines have also been undergoing safety tests for years, these ones for covid are the first approved but not because previous/ongoing ones were shown to be unsafe.)

e.g. info from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

[chrisco255]

You might be right, I'm sure they have been studying them in the lab for years. But having already seen someone suffer from Bell's palsy as a direct result of the vaccine, I don't need that risk. Especially since people in my family who are genetically similar to me and of similar overall health have already contracted Covid and never got worse than a typical flu for any of them, and for several of them they never even got ill. Coupling that with the knowledge that for my age and demographic profile, I'm at no statistically significant risk, I choose to risk exposure to the virus without the mRNA vaccine. That's how it has to be.

[corin_]

Very sorry to hear about the person you know with Bell's Palsy, I wish them well and with some luck hopefully they'll recover from it and get back to normal.

However, there is not yet any evidence I've seen that the vaccine can cause Bell's Palsy. There's not conclusive evidence it can't, but the FDA says: "The observed frequency of reported Bell’s palsy in the vaccine group is consistent with the expected background rate in the general population."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/covid-vaccine-bells-palsy/

(Please do correct me if I'm out of date and there's anything showing statistical significance, but I don't see anything new from a quick Google.)

When you vaccinate a lot of people, some of them will develop medical problems that would have developed regardless of the vaccine. It's not impossible you will be proven right once there is more data, but until then it is spreading misinformation to say that the vaccine did cause the problem.

[vkou]

Thanks to baseless, politically motivated FUD, there are a lot of people who don't want to get vaccinated, but that number is nowhere near 50%.

[guscost]

We will see. Flu shots get around 45%.

[acct776]

Source?

[hanniabu]

I hear it everywhere as well, even from people that aren't antimaskers