I’m tired of the pandemic. The good news is that COIVD-19 will most likely diminish to where it is no worse than the common flu. While only one deadly infectious disease — smallpox — has ever been eradicated, others have ebbed and became more manageable over time. Why? Humans took steps to fight them; and because natural selection favors strains that do not kill their hosts. Ninety percent of immunologists today believe that COVID-19 will become endemic, threatening only certain pockets of the globe: those places that lack the means or willingness to vaccinate enough of their people.
This diminishing of COVID-19 will come to pass here if and when enough Americans get vaccinated. The evidence is clear vaccinations are safe and necessary to eliminate the threat of hospitalization and death. Those relatively few vaccinated people who have been infected are suffering less-serious conditions than the unvaccinated. The facts are indisputable that the greatest spikes in COVID-19 and the far larger number of hospitalizations and deaths are in those states with vaccination rates far below the national average. Likewise, the increasing number of Delta variant hospitalizations of children are primarily in the southern states with the fewest vaccinations and the greatest opposition to mask and vaccine mandates.
A recent poll showed that 72% of Americans favor mandated vaccinations, while only 28% oppose them. There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground in the debate. It is this minority that lessens the odds of the diminishing of COVID-19. There are multiple reasons for the strong opposition by this minority. First — and I suspect primarily — is a distrust of the government. Poll after poll reveals many Americans distrust their government. In the case of the pandemic and mandates, this distrust led to a belief that the vaccines aren’t safe and that they were rushed into use without proper due diligence. They point to the record time in which they were developed. But the fact is the means to produce these vaccines have existed for nearly a decade in response to SARS-CoV-2. Further, we know that the odds of a serious response to any of these vaccines is minuscule, especially in comparison to the odds of dying from COVID-19. Enough time has now passed that the FDA has now given full approval to the one of the vaccines, which will, hopefully, lessen the opposition to them.
A second factor for opposition is the extreme tribalism and ramifications on politics today. We are becoming an “us vs. them” society. For example, an unmasked individual shot a mask-wearing man in the face with a BB gun because he was “on the other team.” The mantra among so many opponents of vaccination, social distancing and mask mandates is that “I don’t believe the other side.”
A third factor is a spirit of American faux libertarianism, reflected by those who declare “it’s my body and no one can mandate what I put into it,” while at the same time rejecting the rights of the government, employers or retail owners to mandate masks and vaccines. This self-centeredness is angering many among the majority. Among them are one of my favorite columnists, Philip Gulley, the pastor of a central Indiana Friends church. He is upset with those who “think freedom means doing whatever they want no matter how it affects others.” “If that’s freedom” he said, “I’m not sure we’ll survive it.”
Michael Adkins formerly was chair of the Hancock County Democratic Party.
