One of the more recent entries in the COVID-19 pandemic lexicon is 'vaccine hesitancy'. This is the term for avoiding / refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccination for a variety of reasons -- more on that later.
Vaccine hesitancy / avoidance / refusal has become the latest politicized issue in a pandemic full of them. Republicans are generally rejecting vaccines while Democrats generally can't get vaccinated soon enough. Unfortunately for both groups, not getting the COVID-19 vaccine is bad for everyone, since there will be no way to achieve herd immunity without a near 90% vaccination rate.
The reasons given for this hesitancy range from the ridiculous (the government is injecting people with tracking software) to the sublime (afraid of needles). Regardless, the vaccine hesitancy group is, among other things, selfish. They constitute a group of societal free-riders, essentially getting the benefits of a world where others are sacrificing, without making any sacrifices of their own.
More unfortunately for the Rs in that group, however, is they will suffer the majority of future hospitalizations and death. Pre-vaccine, everyone generally shared the consequences of those idiots who chose to behave recklessly (although front-line health care workers suffered more). Post-vaccine, the harms of the COVID-19 virus will increasingly fall on the vaccine hesitant.
So, the pandemic outcomes are now bifurcating. Those willing and able to get vaccinated will be OK, while the unwilling, science-denying, free-riders will eventually get the virus, and a certain percentage of them will be hospitalized and/or die.
Maybe herd immunity actually means we have to thin the herd somehow.
