Decisions about covid policy have been mostly political, but vaccines weren’t political before that. Consider smallpox. Smallpox was all over the world and apparently unbeatable. It was described in China in 340. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln got it, and if they died history could have gone way differently. https://rootsofprogress.org/smallpox-and-vaccines. It was just a thing that sometimes happened to people, and nothing could be done about it. Suddenly, as soon as vaccines were applied to a region. Smallpox was completely eliminated there.
A similar thing happened with Polio, Tetanus, Hepatitis A and B, Rubella, Measles, Hib, Whooping Cough, Pneumococcal Disease, Mumps, Diptheria… They are almost gone, and the only people who get them now are in places that haven’t gotten consistent and almost complete vaccination.
In fact, there’s one that most people alive remember. Chicken pox used to be seen as an inevitable childhood disease, to the point that people used to throw “pox parties” to get it over with. but when the vaccine was invented in 1995 it rapidly decreased, and I don’t know anyone my age who has gotten it (born in 1996). It’s pretty much gone now.
Zvi isn’t trying to have “fairness in a political fight”, as if the sides were equal. The “vaccines are effective” side is totally crushing the “vaccines are bad” side. And plague doesn’t care about your politics.
Decisions about covid policy have been mostly political, but vaccines weren’t political before that. Consider smallpox. Smallpox was all over the world and apparently unbeatable. It was described in China in 340. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln got it, and if they died history could have gone way differently. https://rootsofprogress.org/smallpox-and-vaccines. It was just a thing that sometimes happened to people, and nothing could be done about it. Suddenly, as soon as vaccines were applied to a region. Smallpox was completely eliminated there.
A similar thing happened with Polio, Tetanus, Hepatitis A and B, Rubella, Measles, Hib, Whooping Cough, Pneumococcal Disease, Mumps, Diptheria… They are almost gone, and the only people who get them now are in places that haven’t gotten consistent and almost complete vaccination.
In fact, there’s one that most people alive remember. Chicken pox used to be seen as an inevitable childhood disease, to the point that people used to throw “pox parties” to get it over with. but when the vaccine was invented in 1995 it rapidly decreased, and I don’t know anyone my age who has gotten it (born in 1996). It’s pretty much gone now.
Zvi isn’t trying to have “fairness in a political fight”, as if the sides were equal. The “vaccines are effective” side is totally crushing the “vaccines are bad” side. And plague doesn’t care about your politics.