Vaccine Mandates Actually More Effective Than Thoughts, Prayers

Vaccine resisters needed prodding from a few sharp sticks.

Here's some good news for a Tuesday: Vaccine resisters are considering freeing us from our COVID-19 prisons. According to a new Axios-Ipsos poll, vaccine hesitancy in the US is decreasing. Fewer adults than ever claim they won't get vaccinated.

 From Axios:  

72% of adults now say they've already taken the vaccine. Another 8% say they're likely to take it.

The 20% who say they're either not very likely (6%) or not at all likely (14%) comprise a new low in the survey, and down from a combined 34% in March and 23% two weeks ago.

So, what's accounted for the change among our flaky brethren? Was it the vaccine lotteries where public health was promoted through cash prizes? Maybe patiently listening to the ravings of anti-vaxxers without judging them too harshly did the trick. Just kidding. What really seem to have moved us in the right direction are vaccine mandates.

Although one in three unvaccinated Americans surveyed said the recent FDA approval of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine makes them more likely to take the jab, a more sizable number — 43 percent — claimed their employers requiring vaccination would get them to the CVS on time. That's up from 33 percent just a month ago. This is good news, and evidence that a stick in this specific case is more compelling than an assortment of heirloom carrots, even if so many vaccine resisters are harebrained.

"Schools, organizations, companies, governments implementing mandates are forcing people to deal with them," said Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs. "That's what going on."

It's so obvious, it's a little infuriating that it took so long before we got serious about vaccine mandates. New Zealand, which is under nationwide lockdown at present, is only 24 percent vaccinated. Australia's vaccination rate is also lower than a rural MAGA town at just 27 percent. Vaccinated people's lives are for shit in both countries, unless you were already into never leaving the house. This is shaping up to be the shut-in decade.

Twitter 

Starting September 3, New South Wales residents who are fully vaccinated will receive “new freedoms," which aren't actually freedoms if you have to receive them. They can leave home for an hour of recreation in addition to their government-approved exercise hour. They can also meet five other people outdoors at a great distance. The Prisoner had more freedom of movement in the Village when the administrators weren't trying to brainwash him.

New Zealand police are setting up checkpoints near its largest city, Auckland, soNumber 6residents can't escape to regions with less severe COVID-19 restrictions.

This is obviously not a sustainable form of life. David Frum noted on Twitter that "there are are three futures and only three: high COVID death toll, lockdowns, or vaccine mandates. World's easiest multiple-choice exam, or so you'd think."

Conservative Americans won't tolerate even the half-assed lockdowns from last year, so that's not really a question, and the MAGA solution of letting COVID burn through the unvaccinated population, including children and immunocompromised people, is sociopathic but par for the course with those guys. The best way forward is with vaccine mandates. That is how you return to whatever it was that you considered a normal life.

Looks like Multnomah County (roughly Portland, for out-of-staters) has the lowest covid rate per capita in Oregon.… https: //t.co/Fq29I5zyoF

— Montucky Woodsnacks (@Montucky Woodsnacks) 1630357845.0 

As the Delta variant continues fucking up our Sundays, vaccinated Americans have had it with the willingly unvaccinated dragging us back into the pandemic penitentiary. Multnomah County has the lowest COVID-19 rate per capita in Oregon but mask mandates returned because of unvaccinated, maskless boobs in other parts of the state. Vaccine mandates that turn up the heat on the anti-science crowd will make life better for all of us while keeping COVID deniers alive in spite of themselves. Carrot time is over.

[ Axios ]

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