Ruminations On Biden's Vaccine Mandate

The commentary I've seen on yesterday's speech mandating shots for 80 million people in the US has so far missed a key point.

First, the numbers are at best confusing. The UK is one of the countries experiencing a major surge in cases, as shown at right. But according to the Office for National Statistics,

An estimated 94.1% of the adult population in England, 92.0% in Wales, 90.4% in Northern Ireland and 93.6% in Scotland tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies in the week beginning 9 August 2021. The presence of antibodies suggests a person previously had COVID-19 or has been vaccinated.

Estimated vaccination rates continued to increase in the week beginning 2 August 2021. Across the four UK countries, 90.5% to 92.4% had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and 76.8% to 82.5% were fully vaccinated.

By contrast, in the US,

At least 208,024,209 people or 63% of the population have received at least one dose.

Overall, 177,104,652 people or 54% of the population have been fully vaccinated.

But the US delta surge. at least for now, appears to be peaking, as shown at right. But even if you say, "Wait, the UK had a peak a month or so ago, but now it's had another surge, why won't this happen in the US. too?" I would simply answer that even if that happens, we'll be seeing exactly the same result with 25% less of the population fully vaccinated.

In other words, there's some reason to expect, based just on numbers, that a best case for Biden (viz, one that justifies his mandate) in the US will be the same result as in the UK no matter how many more people are vaccinated, maximum irritation and expenditure of political capital, with minimum result. But it's also worth pointing out that the performance of individual US states is wildly inconsistent.

Look at California, which experienced a much milder delta peak, which seems, at least for now, to be playing itself out. In contrast, Oregon and Washington had much higher peaks, although both recently appear to be declining, at least for the time being. But again, even if there's a renewed surge as in the UK, it will simply be the same result at much lower vaccination rates.

It seems to me that we actually know so little about COVID and vaccines that predictions and remedies so far have been inaccurate and ineffective, to the point that the public health establishment has been losing credibility. The US administration -- and governments elsewhere as well -- have been losing credibility along with it.

A much better approach -- one that a Donald Trump would probably have pursued at this point -- would be to call in other public health people for a second or third opinion, and then call in Drs Collins, Walensky, and Fauci and, with the second or third opinions in hand, order them to develop a Plan B. Or they're fired, which I think they should be.

The problem is that Joe Biden is clinically incompetent. Given a range of bad options, his record at this point is he'll consistently choose the worst.