MATT WELCH: RIP, ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated.’

The problems with the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” message pre-date the variant that rendered it factually ludicrous. On September 16, one week after Biden reversed serial administration promises by announcing an employer vaccine mandate (while using language such as “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us”), science writer Yasmin Tayag penned an Atlantic piece headlined “Stop Calling It a ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated.'”

“Bullying the unvaccinated into getting their shots isn’t going to work in the long run,” Tayag predicted, in a piece surveying a field of study (behavioral science) to which the White House seems oblivious. “The way the mandates are being presented is driving a wedge between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. If the goal is to inoculate enough people to reach herd immunity, this approach may eventually backfire.”

So how have mandates worked in practice? The New York Times on December 18 published a survey of all 50 states and the country’s largest 100 cities, and concluded that the government orders “have not provided the significant boost to state and local vaccination rates that some experts had hoped for.” To the contrary: “In most locations, the number of adults with at least one shot grew at a slower pace after states and cities announced mandates than it did nationwide in the same time periods.”

Clearly, the efficacy of the vaccines has been oversold. That’s particularly true about omicron, which spreads like nothing else — but isn’t that bad, either.

The mandates are about getting people to accept an unAmerican level of submission to arbitrary authority.