Manifest Inoculation
America's curse of individualism and the genetic reshuffling that couldn't care less.
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Last summer, a quote began circulating online, demonstrating once again the humanity and selflessness of America’s top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci:
This was in the midst of… one of the pandemic waves, and because of course there was an ongoing national argument about mask wearing and distancing and whether or not you should attend massive motorcycle rallies. It was both a lovely sentiment, that this eminent physician carried in his core a desire to help others, and a rebuke to those still frolicking in Ozarks plague pools as if it didn’t matter. Fauci for the win.
Except, of course, he never said that.
This wasn’t Fauci’s fault of course, he had nothing to do with it. It was The Internet that spread the lie, as it tends to. The reason this happened at all is that this quote, whose origin we will shortly arrive at, was dramatically relevant to the masking and distancing and, maybe most importantly now, the vaccinating that we need to proceed apace.
But first, to credit. That quote actually originates from an author named Lauren Morrill. She tweeted it out back in 2017, on a totally separate topic, when the pandemic was barely a gleam in Ed Yong’s eye:
The fact that her sentiment got repackaged and repurposed multiple times since then (here’s a HuffPost piece that stole it and refused to give credit, even when authors/editors were supposedly asked repeatedly) is mostly evidence that it’s useful as a way to shame people engaged in uncharitable action. When it comes to the ongoing vaccine rollout, it has taken on yet more weight, since certain subsets of people can’t seem to internalize the idea that there are societal benefits to personal actions.
“I’m young and healthy so why should you care if I don’t get vaccinated” is like throwing a brick at a kid with leukemia’s head. And while it’s a pretty dark approach given the existence of immunocompromised children, it’s also missing the main point in this specific situation (versus, say, measles): the vaccines are not just for individual protection, but for mutation protection.
The more we stop the virus’s circulation, the less likely it becomes that another mutant strain emerges that, say, kills your vaccinated grandmother. A number of these strains have already emerged, of course; the CDC is currently monitoring five strains it categorizes as “variants of concern,” defined as follows:
A variant for which there is evidence of an increase in transmissibility, more severe disease (e.g., increased hospitalizations or deaths), significant reduction in neutralization by antibodies generated during previous infection or vaccination, reduced effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, or diagnostic detection failures.
The B.1.1.7 variant, which originated in the UK, increases transmission by fifty percent, but doesn’t seem to change much when it comes to vaccination. Lucky us. The B.1.351 variant from South Africa, though? It couples a similar fifty percent transmission bump with “reduced neutralization by convalescent and post-vaccination sera.” Meaning it might be able to “escape” the immunity the vaccines we’re getting has provided. And kill your grandmother.
Along with the five variants of concern, the CDC is tracking eight other “variants of interest.” If you ask the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, another sixteen variants are currently worth watching as well. Luckily, none of these has risen to the deeply ominous category of “variant of high consequence,” a scenario where the world would sort of find itself back at the start of all this.
All of which is to say, Dr. Fauci’s fake quote has a truly global degree of relevance right now, and the individualistic streak baked into American founding myths is gunning to kickstart a pandemic that vaccination is starting to get under control (in some countries). The more the virus circulates, the more variants will pop up, and eventually one might wander into the “high consequence” realm and truly mangle the ongoing recovery. The effort in right-wing circles to make everything a purely individual action—for no obvious reason beyond lib ownage, really—could end up being a far more impactful campaign than I’m sure they’re bargaining for.
At latest polling, more than a quarter of Americans said they would not get vaccinated. Vaccine hesitancy is far from unique, of course—polling done throughout 2020 suggested as many as one billion people around the world would refuse a vaccine if offered, clearly for very different reasons depending on the country—but other rich nations do have far lower rates of refusal than the US. More than eighty percent of people in countries as disparate as Sri Lanka, Egypt, Denmark, and Nicaragua say they would gladly accept a COVID vaccine. The most recent government polling in the UK shows acceptance is up to ninety-four percent.
The thing is, given the potential global scope of just kind of letting the virus keep flitting about, mutating with abandon, you can make the case that getting vaccinated does not even really require that anyone “care about other people.” Do you want the entire global economy to shut down again? No? Well, feel free to think entirely about yourself as the needle jabs in. Take comfort in knowing that you’re sticking it to Fauci and his annoying insistence—the internet told me, so it’s true—that you think occasionally about someone else.
Find me:
Well done,sir!