It seems increasingly clear to me that just about everyone who chooses not to get vaccinated is going to get sick with the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The Delta variant is much more contagious than older forms of the virus and can infect even vaccinated people, leaving them able to infect others even while continuing to be protected from serious effects.
This seems to throw the concept of herd immunity into serious question.
Since most of those opposed to vaccinations are also opposed to social distancing and masking, what’s to stop the spread?
Most of those infected will have mild symptoms but some will become seriously ill and require hospitalization, some will die, and some will survive but suffer from long COVID, which can be very debilitating for months or longer.
Vaccination rates are rising too slowly to head off the rapidly rising case count.
The only thing I can see that will save hospitals from being overwhelmed and deaths from rising again to thousands every day is mandated vaccinations.
This will enrage the Republican right-wing and those seduced by anti-science lies, but so be it.
The sooner we’re all vaccinated the sooner life can return to some semblance of normality for all of us.
The problem is not the virus, it is controllable; the problem is the unvaccinated.
Craig Whalley
Port Angeles