Where is the carrot?
The issue here is that the need for wearing a mask is not affected by whether you've been vaccinated. The mask is not mainly about protecting you, it's about protecting others from you.
Unless a vaccine also stops transmission entirely (and none of them do though it looks like they will to some extent) you remain a danger to others even if you yourself have been vaccinated.
This in fact is my main issue with people refusing a vaccine. If it was just their own health, and there were no other implications, then fine. It isn't though. If large numbers are unvaccinated, then the vaccinated population still can't return to some semblance of normality without risking killing them.
(BTW I'm not advocating enforced vaccination, I just hate the effect a large unvaccinated population has on the vaccinated population. And for context/clarity/disclosure, I'll be taking it when offered.)
Unfortunately the what you are suggesting just isn't feasible. Mask wearing is also still necessary because we don't know if vaccinated people are still carriers. It is entirely possible the R number of a vaccinated person not wearing as mask is higher than the R number of an unvaccinated person wearing a mask.
Honestly, I think we should just pay people to take it.
The internet is a gigantic vector for mental disease. That's the problem here.
I don’t think anyone is denying that the mental health impacts aren’t real, but I’ve seen no data that supports that conclusion
We get to herd immunity with the flu every year around this time (in the Northern hemisphere). Respiratory virus season ends and rates of transmission fall below 1.0.
“While not every single individual may be immune, the group as a whole has protection. This is because there are fewer high-risk people overall. The infection rates drop, and the disease peters out.”
It’s obviously better to completely kill off Covid (or any infectious disease) with global herd immunity, but a yearly outbreak suppressed by regular vaccination is something we have a model for, and it’s far better than where we’re at with Covid.
