- We continue to receive better news about how the COVID vaccines will get us back to normal.
- But public health messages continue to underestimate how quickly the vaccine will change our lives.
- People won’t have to wait until Christmas to behave normally.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
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We continue to receive better news about COVID vaccines, but the public messages we are hearing from the authorities remain strangely cautious.
Every day, there seems to be a new positive discovery about the effects of vaccines. Data observed in Israel – which have progressed faster than any other country in the world in vaccinating its population – suggest that the vaccine has been highly effective in stopping the spread of the virus, not just in stopping symptomatic diseases. This adds up to other studies that found significant reductions in infection even after partial vaccine courses and, of course, found extremely high efficacy in preventing serious illness and death.
But at the same time, the messages from leaders and the media are strangely pessimistic. Dr. Anthony Fauci and President Joe Biden are looking forward to this Christmas as a time when things may be approaching normal, although vaccines are available to anyone who wants to about six months before that. A lot of news about vaccines emphasizes the strange idea that you you should not change your behavior, even after you have had a vaccine this dramatically reduces the risk of contracting COVID, becoming seriously ill with COVID, or transmitting the virus that causes COVID to others.
On the other hand, many things are already “normal”, despite a virus still deadly. Across the country, many people are already doing the things we are supposed to hope to do, like dining at home and sending their children to school in person. As the risk associated with COVID drops dramatically, this normality will only intensify, even if government officials say it is not yet time to be normal.
You are already ignoring the CDC and government health experts
One thing that is normal, like journalist Matt Yglesias annotated on Twitter, it is for the government to issue excessively cautious health advice and for the public to ignore that advice. The CDC tells Americans to cook our well-done hamburgers and eggs until the yolks are solidified. Tell us to use dental barriers for oral sex. You don’t need CDC’s permission to hug your vaccinated grandfather any more than to eat eggs easily.
So one good thing about the bad advice that reveals the benefits of the vaccine is that many people are sure to ignore it.
But I worry that the sale below value may be affecting people’s desire to be vaccinated. If our vaccine message is strongly focused on what is supposed to will not do it for you and say that people will have to keep doing all the annoying things they are doing now, why wouldn’t that make many people hesitate to get the vaccine?
COVID will probably never disappear entirely, and people who are not vaccinated will remain at risk even after the public’s willingness to comply with the restrictions has evaporated due to widespread vaccination among those who were most concerned about the disease and therefore more willing to change your behavior. Given that COVID is likely to be endemic, we want as many people as possible to get the vaccine.
As such, it would be good to see more political figures emphasizing how vaccines will allow an imminent return to normality instead of compromising and selling little. Vaccines are a very good thing that will not only save lives, but will also make many activities safe again, and people should know that.