It’s been suggested (hoped?) by some that once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated the perception will shift pretty instantaneously and then people will be happy to crack on and deal with something that has a threat at or below that of common flu. I wasn’t sure, because I could sense that people were taking their lead on feeling safe from what they were told via mainstream information sources.
Well, where are we now? Those who account for 99% of deaths from COVID are almost all fully vaccinated and the vaccines are going into the arms of many way, way down the risk list. What is often misrepresented about the efficacy of vaccination is the reduction in risk it poses.
I have seen much of the discussion about the protection afforded to the disease by vaccination as describing it in percentage terms. The numbers around the Pfizer and AZ vaccines are that 1 jab provides about 80% protection which then jumps to over 90% following the booster shot.
With the dialogue being such, it is easy to think that if you went from unvaccinated to 1 shot protected to, finally, 2 shot protected that you have gone from 0% protected, to 80% to 90% +. However, this is not the actual risk faced by you.
The risk to any individual without vaccination varies, but for most of the population under the age of 60, there was a much less than 1% chance of getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19. Thus, the protection of 80% then 90% (following the first and second doses, respectively) is in terms of reduction of the already small risk that was posed.
The protection in percentage terms issued by the vaccine manufacturers relates to risk of serious illness versus placebo in the trials - not absolute risk. So, of course, the more vulnerable you were to COVID before vaccination, the greater the net effect on your overall protection is from the jab.
So - as we reach a stage where the most vulnerable are about as protected as they can possibly be, what more needs to change for them to feel sufficiently safe? I argue that the narrative has to change. The Govt - having utilised the media to propagate the sense of fear to corral behaviours - now need to hit reverse quickly to start trying to undo that. Reassure. Demonstrate that people are as protected as is possible and change perceptions.
If we’re waiting for the masses to change their mind, and then have action follow that, we’ll be waiting forever such is the total disparity for most people between the actual risk they face versus the risk they perceive that they face.