While we continue to learn about the behaviour of the new coronavirus and its newer variants, the Covid-19 pandemic is also teaching us much about human behaviour and the ways in which it is facilitating the rampant spread of this virus. The Delta variant is currently being transmitted across the US at a rate faster than was seen during the initial surge back in April 2020. This spike in cases is especially pronounced in some southern states, where Republican political leaders seem unfavourably disposed towards mask mandates and often also to compulsory vaccination, creating obstacles in the path towards victory over the rather devious coronavirus. Florida, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi are among the names that feature in lists of states that have once again become hotspots of infection, as manifested by rising case rates, as well as by hospitalisations and deaths that are almost entirely confined to the unvaccinated.
Vaccine hesitancy and anti-vaccination sentiments, amplified and propagated by popular social media platforms, feed into a libertarian ideology in which “I”, or individual freedom of choice, which enables vaccine refusal, comes before “We”, a desire to work towards the collective good by getting vaccinated. Making people accept the vaccine in the face of widely encouraged anti-vaccine sentiments is an uphill struggle, in which seemingly some appear willing to even sacrifice their own lives, as well as indirectly those of others, rather than submit to the alleged “tyranny” of vaccination. It seems that young adults, aged between 18 and 29 years, are a particularly difficult group to convince, leading to several reports of tragic deaths or serious, but non-fatal, illness, among younger people.
Coercive measures only further antagonise anti-vaxxer folks who reject the government’s role in overseeing the nation’s public health. Nonetheless, there appears to be a change of heart among elements of the Republican leadership. The governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, has blamed the unvaccinated and reiterated her support for mass vaccination, prompting many vaccine hesitants within her state to come forward for their much-dreaded jabs, while the governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, has openly regretted a mask mandate ban he signed back in April this year. Attempts have also been made to tempt hesitants in other ways, by appealing to their baser instincts through offers of so-called “creative incentives”- in the form of such goodies as free doughnuts or pizzas, baseball tickets, lottery pay-outs, cash payments, and even prepaid debit cards. Medics in the worst affected states have also gone public, highlighting the stresses on healthcare systems stretched to the limits, in the hope that their viewers will see the light.
Things are further complicated by the fact that those who are fully vaccinated are not yet out of the woods. “Breakthrough” infections have indeed been reported in the fully vaccinated, who can still transmit the virus, while only developing milder symptoms. The CDC accordingly updated its recommendations on 27 July 2021. Fully vaccinated people are to wear a mask in public indoor settings in areas of “substantial or high transmission”. The CDC also recommended universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.
The new recommendations have not been welcomed in all quarters. For example, in the state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis spoke out against school mask mandates, believing that it is up to parents to decide for themselves, presumably based on their own perceptions of the risks of unmasking. The US is a federation of states, each with a high degree of autonomy, making it difficult to impose federal recommendations, especially in the face of some uncertainty about the outcomes of proposed interventions, thereby conveying an impression of the “Disunited States” of America to many observers from afar. As with everything else in this pandemic, most of us will have to watch from the sidelines and hope that some good comes out of it all in the end.
Ashis Banerjee