In the United States, this pandemic could�ve been over by now, and
certainly would�ve been by Labor Day. If the pace of vaccination through
the summer had been anything like the pace in April and May, the country
would be nearing herd immunity. With most adults immunized, new and more
infectious coronavirus variants would have nowhere to spread. Life could
return nearly to normal.

Experts list many reasons for the vaccine slump, but one big reason stands
out: vaccine resistance among conservative, evangelical, and rural
Americans. Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a
statement of identity and a test of loyalty.

In April, people in counties that Joe Biden won in 2020 were two points
more likely to be fully vaccinated than people in counties that Donald
Trump won: 22.8 percent were fully vaccinated in Biden counties; 20.6
percent were fully vaccinated in Trump counties. By early July, the
vaccination gap had widened to almost 12 points: 46.7 percent were fully
vaccinated in Biden counties, 35 percent in Trump counties. When pollsters
ask about vaccine intentions, they record a 30-point gap: 88 percent of
Democrats, but only 54 percent of Republicans, want to be vaccinated as
soon as possible. All told, Trump support predicts a state�s vaccine
refusal better than average income or education level.

Read: Vaccination in America might have only one tragic path forward

To overcome this resistance, some state and local political leaders have
offered incentives: free beer, free food, tickets for a $1 million
lottery. This strategy is not working, or not working well enough. Part of
the trouble is that pro-Trump state legislatures are enacting ever more
ambitious protections for people who refuse vaccines. They are forbidding
business owners to ask for proof of vaccination from their customers. They
are requiring cruise lines, sports stadiums, and bars to serve the
unvaccinated. In Montana, they have even forbidden hospitals to require
health-care workers to get vaccinated.
Recommended Reading

An illustration of a vaccine needle and the word �No.�
Millions Are Saying No to the Vaccines. What Are They Thinking?
Derek Thompson
Inside the Mind of an Anti-vaxxer
Olga Khazan
An illustration of anti-vaccine posters made up of vaccine needles.
Anti-vaxxers Think This Is Their Moment
Ren�e DiResta

Pro-Trump vaccine resistance exacts a harsh cost from pro-Trump loyalists.
We read pitiful story after pitiful story of deluded and deceived people
getting sick when they did not have to get sick, infecting their loved
ones, being intubated, and dying. And as these loyalists harm themselves
and expose all of us to unnecessary and preventable risk,
publications�including this one�have run articles sympathetically
explaining the recalcitrance of the unvaccinated. These tales are 2021�s
version of the Trump safaris of 2017, when journalists traveled through
the Midwest to seek enlightenment in diners and gas stations.

Reading about the fates of people who refused the vaccine is sorrowful.
But as summer camp and travel plans are disrupted�as local authorities
reimpose mask mandates that could have been laid aside forever�many in the
vaccinated majority must be thinking: Yes, I�m very sorry that so many of
the unvaccinated are suffering the consequences of their bad decisions.
I�m also very sorry that the responsible rest of us are suffering the
consequences of their bad decisions.

As cases uptick again, as people who have done the right thing face the
consequences of other people doing the wrong thing, the question occurs:
Does Biden�s America have a breaking point? Biden�s America produces 70
percent of the country�s wealth�and then sees that wealth transferred to
support Trump�s America. Which is fine; that�s what citizens of one nation
do for one another. Something else they do for one another: take rational
health-care precautions during a pandemic. That reciprocal part of the
bargain is not being upheld.

Biden�s America is home to vaccine holdouts too. But state and local
leaders in Biden�s America have spoken clearly and consistently about the
urgency of vaccination. The leaders in Trump�s America have talked a
double game: Like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, they urge vaccination one
day, then the next they fundraise by attacking public-health officials
such as Anthony Fauci. The consequence of DeSantis�s weeks of pandering to
COVID-19 denial: More than one-fifth of all new COVID-19 cases in the
United States are arising in the state of Florida�24,000 recorded on a
single day, July 20.

David Frum: The rise of Ron DeSantis

Can governments lawfully require more public-health cooperation from their
populations? They regularly do, for other causes. More than a dozen
conservative states have legislated drug testing for people who seek cash
welfare. It is bizarre that Florida and other states would put such an
onus on the poorest people in society�while allowing other people to
impose a much more intimate and immediate harm on everybody else. The
federal government could use its regulatory and spending powers to
encourage vaccination in the same way that Ron DeSantis has used his
executive powers to discourage it. The Biden administration could require
proof of vaccination to fly or to travel by interstate train or bus. It
could mandate that federal contractors demonstrate that their workforces
are vaccinated. It could condition federal student loans on proof of
vaccination. Those measures might or might not be wise policy: Inducements
are usually more effective at changing individual behavior than penalties
are. But they would be feasible and legal�and they would spread the
message about what people ought to do, in the same way that sanctions
against drunk driving, cheating on taxes, and unjust discrimination in the
workplace do.

Read: America is getting unvaccinated people all wrong

Compassion should always be the first reaction to vaccine hesitation.
Maybe some unvaccinated people have trouble getting time off work to deal
with side effects, maybe they are disorganized, maybe they are just
irrationally anxious. But there�s no getting around the truth that some
considerable number of the unvaccinated are also behaving willfully and
spitefully. Yes, they have been deceived and manipulated by garbage TV,
toxic Facebook content, and craven or crazy politicians. But these are the
same people who keep talking about �personal responsibility.� In the end,
the unvaccinated person himself or herself has decided to inflict a
preventable and unjustifiable harm upon family, friends, neighbors,
community, country, and planet.

Will Blue America ever decide it�s had enough of being put medically at
risk by people and places whose bills it pays? Check yourself: Have you?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/vaccinated-america-
breaking-point-anti-vaxxers/619539/