It’s pro-social to get vaccinated now, for the following reasons:
Vaccines that are already delivered to your country are not going to get shipped elsewhere. They have a shelf life and (especially the MRNA ones) don’t always travel that well. Vaccine supply to the third world will be shipped from factories, not reclaimed from vaccinations sites now.
Switzerland and other western countries will be more willing to release supply/not buy more when their population is protected. As long as they feel like they have a clear need then they will oppose sending vaccines elsewhere.
Those two factors make it clear that getting a shot now will more likely decrease (marginally) the time to diversion of significant supply to other places that need it more.
If the Swiss government expects vaccine hesitancy, their response won’t be to buy less vaccines but to spend more resources on fighting vaccine hesitancy.
Good points! On 1.: Partly agree. But maybe the world is a bit more dynamic; at least until very recently I think I read from new supply agreements; not sure it was the last one to be in the near future.
On 2.: I think it hinges not least upon the exact interpretation of (say, lower) vaccination numbers by the officials: “more to vaccinate still, let’s ensure we have enough doses in the coming months”, or “not all seem to be willing to get vaccinated, we won’t need so many doses in the next round either”. I the latter case, I could see ‘my’ not-vaccinating to rather increase the medium-term supply available to other countries, in expectation. It is not obvious to me which case is more pertinent. I guess if we see many unused doses in the next days, while the entire population would have been allowed to use them, this would rather point officials towards a reduced demand by the population, even in the medium-term, as long as the pressure to vaccinate does not increase.
It’s pro-social to get vaccinated now, for the following reasons:
Vaccines that are already delivered to your country are not going to get shipped elsewhere. They have a shelf life and (especially the MRNA ones) don’t always travel that well. Vaccine supply to the third world will be shipped from factories, not reclaimed from vaccinations sites now.
Switzerland and other western countries will be more willing to release supply/not buy more when their population is protected. As long as they feel like they have a clear need then they will oppose sending vaccines elsewhere.
Those two factors make it clear that getting a shot now will more likely decrease (marginally) the time to diversion of significant supply to other places that need it more.
This seems to fail to acausal reasoning.
If the Swiss government expects vaccine hesitancy, their response won’t be to buy less vaccines but to spend more resources on fighting vaccine hesitancy.
The other side is not using that reasoning.
Good points! On 1.: Partly agree. But maybe the world is a bit more dynamic; at least until very recently I think I read from new supply agreements; not sure it was the last one to be in the near future.
On 2.: I think it hinges not least upon the exact interpretation of (say, lower) vaccination numbers by the officials: “more to vaccinate still, let’s ensure we have enough doses in the coming months”, or “not all seem to be willing to get vaccinated, we won’t need so many doses in the next round either”. I the latter case, I could see ‘my’ not-vaccinating to rather increase the medium-term supply available to other countries, in expectation. It is not obvious to me which case is more pertinent. I guess if we see many unused doses in the next days, while the entire population would have been allowed to use them, this would rather point officials towards a reduced demand by the population, even in the medium-term, as long as the pressure to vaccinate does not increase.