On Monday this week I read an interesting article in my newsfeed. It was "
Why More Americans Are Saying They’re ‘Vaxxed and Done’" by Derek Thompson in
The Atlantic (10 Jan 2022). In it the author makes the argument that responsible people who've followed the science of Covid and precautions against it should give up avoiding crowded indoors places and being such sticklers about mask mandates and instead just live our lives. As long as we're vaccinated and wear masks
ourselves, he explains, we're as safe as we ever will be; so we might as well get on with life.
Coincidentally a bunch of my friends on a Discord server were discussing it Monday. It's an appealing argument. I'm definitely getting tired of staying home from lots of things and wearing a mask when I do go out. Lots of my friends are, too. And we're all the target audience this author is aiming at: we're all vaxxed; most if not all of us are boosted, too; and we've all been diligent about masking, social distancing, and foregoing many previously normal activities that entail being among crowds indoors.
But just because the idea is
appealing doesn't mean it's good. And that's where my suspicions started getting aroused in thinking about this article. "Is the author really a science-follower talking to fellow science followers," I wondered, "Or a charismatic covidiot, a wolf in sheep's clothing trying to persuade us to stop trying to fight the Coronavirus?"
My suspicions were especially aroused because the author cites no data. His argument is all about feelings— you should go back to normal because you're
tired— with no facts to support evidence based decision making.
So I went and looked at the facts. A simple one is the 7-day average new case rate. It's a stat I refer to repeatedly in this blog. I like it because it's the best data form of answer to the question, "If I go out right now, how exposed will I be to people who are contagious with this virus?"
What Actual Data Shows
My go-to source, as usual, is the
New York Times "
Coronavirus in the U.S." page. Here's a comparison chart I built from their latest data today:

I've highlighted a few datapoints above. The first one (on the left) is from June 10 last year. I picked that date because I was starting to feel close to "Vaxxed and Done" (VAD) myself back then.
I'd gotten my second Pfizer shot two months earlier.
Big employers were talking about bringing employees back to the office.
We had friends over to our house for the first time in 14 months. The CDC updated guidance that
vaxxed people could gather safely in groups (with strangers) outdoors. I took my first flight in 15 months. What I was still waiting on in to be
truly VAD was for the rates to drop lower. By around the middle of June they had dropped pretty low and I was more or less VAD... but then the rates started to climb again, and Delta entered the picture.
The second datapoint I highlighted above is Nov. 10. (I'm kind of picking a 10th of the month thing here to align the dates with the article's publication date.) Even after the late-summer Delta surge has started to subside, the new case rate— aka, "How many sick people am I exposed to if I go out?"— was 5x what it was in June.
5x. And it had been much higher, more than 10x June's low, just a month earlier. Oh, and those are just the nationwide averages. In some states the October/November numbers were
50x higher than June's. So any feeling that we were VAD in June would have to be walked back by then. The facts on the ground just didn't support it anymore.
Then that brings me to the third datapoint I highlighted: last Monday's numbers. There I went with the latest data, rather than figures from June 10 when the article was published, because I want to show the numbers are astonishingly high and still rising. The January 14 figure is
55x the rate from June 10. (The rate on Jan 10 was only about 50x June's.) When the rate goes up that high from being ready to call it VAD, to keep calling it VAD is absurd.
Covidiot Bingo
Okay, so the author's argument falls apart,
absurdly so, when actual data is considered. But is he just wrong or a smiling liar, a wolf in sheep's clothing? For that I reread his article looking for the tells. I found he:
- Starts with a "Both Sides" argument equating Democrats to Republicans on issues of following the science of Coronavirus, social distancing, masking, and vaccines.
- Cherry-picks unrelated data points to discredit scientific consensus, government policy, and responsible behavior.
- Fails to cite any pertinent, organized data, even though it's readily available.
- Appeals to the audience's emotions, including tweaking the idea that if they just agree with him they'll be smarter than everyone else laboring under common delusions
- Presents arguments widely used by the science- and vaccine-denying political right, particularly the "We're all going to get it anyway so we might as well quit trying" argument. (This is similar to the "Let 'er rip" argument also going around the conservative blogosphere in recent days.)
All these, individually, are techniques the lying demagogues of the political right use to keep 30%+ of the country angry and stupid. With 5 together like this I shout, "Covidiot Bingo!"
Don't believe Thompson's article or his argument. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing trying to convince Covid-cautious people to give up. His goal wouldn't be to help us relax for
our benefit but to stop calling for vaccine, testing, and mask mandates so that he and his Covidiot friends can live
their lives unencumbered by responsibility.