Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
I said it on radio last night (which I haven't posted yet), but I'll post it again here.
There's going to be a HUGE controversy in 2021 about the vaccines. Remember the Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy anti-vaxxing thing, and the shitstorm that stirred up? It will be that times 100000000.
So the first round of the vaccines will show up in January, and will be given to the old people, the healthcare workers, and those with major preexisting conditions. The vast majority of these people will take the vaccine and probably have fairly good results, and for the moment there will be optimism for the near future.
Then it will become available in March or April for the general public, and all hell will break loose. The problems will be as follows:
1) Adults will refuse to give it to their kids, seeing a realistic risk (side effects) but no real benefit (COVID rarely harms kids). The teachers unions will freak out about this because they are going to want the teachers in school safe from COVID, and will pressure lawmakers into requiring the COVID vaccine for kids to return to in-person school. Parents will say "fuck no", and there's going to be a lot of gigantic, ugly standoffs, perhaps with teacher work stoppages.
2) Adults under 35 will refuse to take the vaccine. Remember the stat I quoted you last week that 99% of the COVID deaths are people 35+, despite the fact that people 0-34 make up almost half the US population? Expect that little-cited stat to become front and center during the vaccine controversy. Young people will simply not take this thing, and between them and the kids, we will have a very large portion of the country unvaccinated.
3) Some people over 35 will refuse the vaccine. Remember my complaint that the media wasn't sufficiently explaining the difference of COVID danger between someone 25 and 45? That will come back to bite us. Healthy middle-aged people will underestimate their COVID danger, and decide to go with the young people and not take the vaccine. There will be a lot more vaccine compliance than with the under-35 group, but still a decent portion of 35-65 year olds refusing to take it -- at least until substantial time passes.
4) Any harmful side effects of the vaccine will be magnified on social media, and all kinds of conspiracy theories and horror stories will spread. This will lower compliance further.
Take all of the above together, and we're probably looking at half the population refusing the vaccine, perhaps more. This will prevent herd immunity from occurring, and COVID will continue to live on. This will also give it more time to mutate, as the flu does each year.
At some point, the government will realize that we're not getting past COVID because of the stubborn half of the population who refuse to vaccinate, and we will start having talk of forced vaccination, which will cause a controversy involving individual rights and freedom like you've never seen before.
If you thought 2020 was full of controversy, buckle up for 2021.
Book it.