What Dr. Fauci Could Have Said
There’s a cool thing in statistics called the “normal distribution”. Basically, nothing really happens in the same way and all at once, but if you plot the details, they always tend to fall along a nice and neat bell-shaped curve. For instance, this is the “bell curve” that teachers use in school when a few kids do really well (graded A), and then a few more do pretty good (B), but most kids do okay (C, the hump in the middle), while a corresponding few do not so well (D), and fewer still don’t do good at all (F).
This same curve works for all sorts of things, including the adoption of new technologies like smartphones and HDTV. Not everyone went out and bought one right off the bat. The first few went to the “risk-takers” (A) who were willing to plunk down a bunch of cash on a brand new untested thing. But then there were “early adopters” (B) who were most willing to take a chance, followed by the “early majority” (C) and “late majority” (D) who were pretty much everyone else. Even to this day, there are “laggards” (F) who might still be using a flip phone or funky old TV or maybe nothing at all. They’ll get around to it someday. Maybe.
Well, of course, as everything tends to do, the vaccine rollout is following the same curve. Early on, there were the high-risk and front-line folks (A), followed by the older folks who were really eager to get the vaccine (B), and then the early majority (C) who have had doses by now. Up next, are the late majority (D) who maybe weren’t in such a hurry, including the 20- or 30-somethings who aren’t very worried about catching COVID. Rounding out the rest will be the laggards (F), who might be fence-sitters right now, or maybe just not too worried about COVID at all. They’ll get around to it someday. Maybe.
Anyway, in the spring of 2021, we may be at the top of this curve. Four to five million folks are getting a vaccine shot every day — which might be the best we’ll ever do — but in a few weeks or maybe a month, the number of doses per day will start to be fewer than the day before. And then fewer. And then even fewer still. And sooner than we know, there will be practically no one getting shots at all. This is because that is the way normal distribution works. As weird as it seems, statistics are predictable in this way.
When we reach the end of this curve, we will learn our fate. If 2-out-of-3 people have been vaccinated, we might be okay. Maybe that will be enough. But if there’s fewer than that, we’ll need to start all over with boosters and try again — the high-risk folks, then frontline workers, followed by older folks and all the rest, all over again. Meanwhile, this pandemic will be with us another year at least — masks and hand washing and social distancing, the whole nine yards. The only way to change that is to get more of us on this chart. That’s the only way. No one is going to fix this but us. All of us.
This is the answer I wish Dr. Fauci had given Rep. Jim Jordan who was pestering him during Congressional testimony for an answer of when this will end.
The bottom line is this — there are a certain number of people who cannot be vaccinated. This will not change. There are also people who do not want to be vaccinated. These minds will NOT change. And so, as the days go by, the likelihood that those who have not been vaccinated will suddenly volunteer to do so will decrease. This likelihood will eventually decrease to nearly zero because this is what likelihood does. There will be no sudden surge among these folks to save us all because that is simply not what happens. It would not be “normal” or expected. When people say they won’t get vaccinated, that is what they mean, and they mean it. As sad as it is, we are all at their mercy. We are at the mercy of those who refuse to be vaccinated because that is what happens in the normal course of events.
Note, the laggards and unwilling won’t be evenly distributed. There may be some here and there, but there will also be pockets of resistance — entire towns and regions where hardly anyone will be vaccinated. These places will become the breeding ground for future hotspots, and when these people leave these areas and freely travel elsewhere, they will spread the virus anew, a virus that is perhaps changed to be even more contagious or more dangerous to those who have not been previously vulnerable, such as younger people and children. A virus that can even get a foothold in the waning immunity of those who have been vaccinated.
What is happening now is what has happened before and will happen again because these are the predictable outcomes of disease. But this is also not a foregone conclusion, at least not yet. Those who would be the laggards or unwilling still have an opportunity to change course. This is up to them. They can defy expectations. The curve will still happen, but it will be ever-so-slightly taller or wider, and that little bit will make all the difference in the world. They could be heroes.
