What does total herd immunity from the coronavirus look like? It might look like Washington, D.C.
Even before Mayor Muriel Bowser reimposed an indoor mask mandate over the summer, the nation’s capital had averaged less than one coronavirus death per week. By the time the Democrat decided to revoke the mandate last month, just 12 unvaccinated residents had died in all of 2021. And now, more than a week after the mask mandate’s removal went into effect, not one life has been lost to the coronavirus.
Unlike Southern states, which already suffered their latest coronavirus wave as people headed indoors for the warm months, the coronavirus’s seasonality for D.C. will probably increase cases for the winter. But not yet. Even with more D.C. residents heading indoors, traveling, and congregating in intergenerational households for Thanksgiving, the coronavirus death rate remained nonexistent.
And contrary to the ever-shifting goalposts presented by such “experts” as Anthony Fauci, D.C. did not have to vaccinate every resident older than 2 to do so. With 82% of residents having received at least one shot, D.C. is among the most vaccinated municipalities in the country. But just as important is the fact that the rate among the elderly is much higher. This factor has largely determined how other states have fared in terms of coronavirus deaths.
So what are some layman’s observations to be made here? Even in dense cities such as New York, which has had high vaccination rates and no mask mandate in over half a year, and D.C., high vaccination rates effectively prevent deaths from the pandemic.
Vaccines work without social distancing and without wearing masks. As much as certain political factions would like to pretend otherwise, there’s only one tool for moving past this: getting vaccinated and moving on.
