I see this as an unmitigated good and the only way we move forward on normalcy. May it inspire others to do similar so we can address vaccinations here then move our surplus abroad.
More than 100 million (maybe closer to 150 million) Americans are estimated to have recovered already and have earned their immunity the hard way. Tell me why that doesn't count.
More specifically, herd immunity is necessary for people who cannot receive the vaccine to be protected. These types of folks are often the immunocompromised.
Herd immunity kicks in when the proportion of folks with sufficient antibodies is high enough, formally modeled as H >= 1 - 1/R_0, where H is the herd immunity level and R_0 is the average rate of cases caused per each case. R_0 (or more appropriately R_t) is dependent both on the intrinsic attributes of the virus as well as behavior of the organisms the virus infects.
So ensuring a large population with strong, effective prevention is in the national interest, is in the evolutionary interest based on all available science, and is in the interests of vulnerable populations.
Results are mixed on whether prior infection is on par with vaccination. For Delta the current understanding that vaccines are 70% to 90% efficacious, and prior infection is 60% to 80% efficacious. Being both vaccinated and having prior infection shows much stronger immune response.
Can you check your link? I think those are serology studies which cannot give an indication of efficacy. I believe you that recovered+vaccine gives stronger measurable antibodies but above some threshold more antibodies does not really give any indication of the two most important factors:
1) transmissibility
2) patient outcomes
What do you find when we compare recovered vs vaccine for those factors?
Reinfection rates are pretty low, partially due to immunity, partially due to behavior (if you've had it you probably know you have it again), and partially because of data drift (federated data sources don't cleanly connect despite reporting to CDC). Vaccination breakthrough rates at point of testing are something like 1/20 to 1/100 versus the canonical susceptible population, without stratifying for ages or patient outcomes or correcting for population biases.
A tangent: the UK has some of the best monitoring implemented and sees antibodies in about 95% of its population. That said, reinfection rate as of June 2021 (roughly pre-Delta) was 0.4% over that population cohort.
“Normalcy” is gone for good. If you’re actually still hoping for some future that looks like the pre-COVID times, you’re going to be disappointed. Hoping to avoid war is more in alignment with reality, at this point.
Unless you want to live naked in a tribe on the African savannas, "normalcy" has been changing for tens of thousands of years, and very fast for the couple hundred, and extremely so for the last hundred. It should not be a surprise that it continues to do so, and "you have to get certain vaccines" has been a thing for any kid going through public schools and/or college for decades. This is nothing new.
Not the GP, but I'd love if employers would enact policies that enabled and encouraged their employees to stay home when they get sick. Covid tore through my office early on because someone felt he had to come in and get work done despite being sick. It tore through my office, killing two people and hospitalizing multiple others, definitely costing more productivity than we gained by the one person coming in to work.
You think all this vaccine passport and mask crap is going away anytime soon? This crap is gonna be with us for a long, long time. We will be flying with masks on for years after this, mark my words (and I fully expect people to reply on why this is a good thing).
There is a large group of people who refuse to move on from covid. We have a vaccine that keeps you out of the hospital. Once you take it, you have a moral right to return to full normal.
