Vaccine Carrots Only Got us so far — Now, it’s Time for Sticks
The dam burst this week. Federal agencies and states began imposing vaccine mandates on their employees as COVID-19 soared in the United States. The Department of Veterans Affairs was first federal agency to implement a mandate. On Thursday, President Joe Biden declared that all federal employees would need to be vaccinated, or undergo testing, among other protocols. New York City and Los Angeles will require all city workers to be vaccinated.
Private companies are also doing the same. Google announced Wednesday that all employees must be vaccinated before they can come to work. Lyft and Facebook followed suit with similar announcements just hours later. New York City restaurants require employees to be vaccinated. They ask diners for proof.
States and organizations have used incentives for months to encourage people to get immunized. These include lottery entries, free tickets to baseball games, and free beer. These incentives can be effective and can encourage people to get vaccinated.
Aaron Carroll, the chief health officer at Indiana University, said in The New York Times that these are "carrots" or positive behavioral nudges. "People like carrots when it comes to incentives," the Biden administration stated yesterday that it wanted $100 from the state and local governments for newly vaccinated people. However, carrots only go so far. They won't push enough people to be vaccinated in order to stop the pandemic. Carroll stated that sometimes people do need to be pushed, but Carroll agreed.
Since the first COVID-19 shots were authorized, the US has been teetering on the subject of vaccine mandates. Several lawmakers in the United States have attempted to ban mandates. However, as major players are now requiring vaccinations, smaller organizations will also be able to do so. They won't be the only ones to do this, and they can point to larger precedents to support their decision.
According to Carroll, vaccine mandates have been crucial in stopping pandemics. It was necessary to eliminate smallpox, and eradicate polio. By requiring children to get their shots before they go to school, we control diphtheria and measles. The reason that HPV vaccination rates aren’t as high is because vaccines aren’t needed. This is despite the fact that they can help prevent cancer.
Because of the backlash and politicization surrounding the COVID-19 vaccinations, mandates will not be in place. They are more likely to be implemented in states with higher vaccination rates, liberal leadership, and more likely to be in effect than in Florida where Governor Ron DeSantis has been vocally opposed to mandates and has the new power to cancel emergency orders.
Mandates will be implemented in places that have more vaccines. Although it may have been more desirable to achieve high vaccine rates without requiring them, it might not have been the best option. It's impossible to achieve high vaccine rates without requirements in the US. In fact, there's too much misinformation and vaccine hesitancy in America. Many people don't believe COVID-19 is serious enough to be worth their time. Although mandataries won't solve the problem by themselves, they are one strategy that might help. We need all the support we can get at this stage.
Here are some other things that happened this week.
Your Immune System is Ready to Breakthroughs
People who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 are unlikely to get a breakthrough infection. The body's immune system can fight the virus in rare instances. (Katherine J. Wu/The Atlantic)
Why is it that fully vaccinated individuals test positive for Covid
The data from England confirms that vaccines work as expected. The disease is now far less deadly. A fully vaccinated 80 year-old with COVID-19 has the same chance of dying as an unvaccinated 50 year-old. (Oliver Barnes, John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times)
Experts question the CDC's decision to reverse indoor masking.
The CDC has released new recommendations that people, even those who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, should wear masks indoors in certain situations. Although the agency has not released the data, it said that this is alarming. (Joel Achenbach and Yasmeen Abutaleb as well as Ben Guarino, Carolyn Y. Johnson / Washington Post
Study finds that COVID symptoms may persist in some vaccinated people who get infected.
One study of Israeli healthcare workers revealed that some people who had COVID-19 breakthrough cases had symptoms that lasted as long as six weeks. These breakthrough cases are still very rare. (Rob Stein / NPR)
Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are expanding their studies on children aged 5-11 at the FDA's request.
Moderna, BioNTech, and Pfizer are increasing the number of COVID-19 vaccine trial participants in children's health to better understand rare side effects. (Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Sharon LaFraniere / The New York Times).
Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has maintained its protection against severe diseases for six months
Pfizer released data showing that the protection against symptoms decreases over time. However, the vaccines remain highly effective against severe cases. This data raises questions about boosters and is still being considered by US regulators. (Nicole Wetsman/The Verge)
In the U.S., New Vaccinations are Rebounding in Covid Hot Spots
The number of vaccinations is also rising in places where COVID-19 has been a major issue. The lowest rates of vaccination are giving shots quicker than the rest of the country. (Drew Armstrong/Bloomberg)
The majority of cats and great apes, such as the gorillas orangutans, are trained to be voluntary vaccinators so it will be simple for them to get vaccinated. The smaller animals can be trained to enter a small mesh box. This will make it easy for them. Some of the larger primates, which are not as interested in being injected voluntarily but are super intelligent, will be the most difficult.
Keith Hinshaw, director of animal health at Philadelphia Zoo, spoke to Slate about how the experimental COVID-19 vaccine was administered to animals.