The Only Way for the U.S. to Reach Herd Immunity Is With COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
To encourage more people to get a COVID-19 vaccine and reach herd immunity, U.S. government leaders and their corporate partners are now dangling many carrots to hesitant Americans. Free childcare, free car rides, even free beer has been offered. But new evidence is emerging in places like Ohio where, after state health authorities set up a lottery offering millions of dollars to people who got the jab, vaccination rates flatlined after an initial bump.
According to our analysis of Ipsos polling, such incentives won’t persuade about a quarter of American adults. And according to the most recent data, Americans—independent of their vaccination status—report phasing out many of the public health precautions they took over the previous 18 months.
Rather than carrots, reaching herd immunity is likely to require the use of sticks: vaccine mandates.
Health officials have left mandates as a last resort to be employed when all who might be persuaded have been vaccinated. But more than half of unvaccinated Americans say they would not get a vaccination if it were readily available to them. And problematically, our polling shows that the choices of those who remain unvaccinated may create enduring risks to public health, which could expedite the spread of mandates in order to secure places like universities, hospitals, and restaurants. This only becomes more urgent with the rise of the more transmissible Delta variant, which has spread to almost every state in the U.S.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/only-way-u-reach-herd-200742948.html
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