We keep hearing that our society won’t be able to return to anything approaching normalcy until enough people are inoculated with an effective vaccine for COVID-19. The problem is the minimum milestone for achieving herd immunity is 70% of the population, and I have serious doubts we can count on enough of our fellow citizens to get the shot.
First you have the anti-vaxxer community, which started with a bunch of pseudoscience-believing suburban liberals who still buy the long-debunked notion that vaccines cause autism. Then add in your basic science deniers and “the government can’t tell me what to do” activists. On top of them, you have the Trumpsters who have made such simple safety measures as wearing masks into political disagreements — not to mention those who refuse to follow social distancing guidelines, like the covidiots in that pool at Lake Of The Ozarks this weekend.
Now add in religious zealots like the redneck I saw on TV yesterday, proudly not wearing a mask nor social distancing as he told a reporter, “I don’t think we’re gonna have a second wave of coronavirus. I think it’s over. Besides, God is going to protect me.” Unfortunately, the reporter failed to ask two important followup questions: 1) What scientific basis is there for your belief we won’t have a second wave; and 2) Why didn’t your precious God protect the 100,000 Americans who have been killed by COVID-19 and the 1.7 million who have been infected by it?
These are not low-information voters, they are reject-information voters, a herd immune to facts and evidence.
Do you see them lining up to get vaccinated when the time comes?