‘Let’s Get More People Vaccinated’

Matt Yglesias, writing at Slow Boring:

In other words, they are acting about the Covid vaccines the same way they’d act about a long-approved antibiotic or the measles vaccine, not the way they’d act about a dietary supplement. They are not saying you are allowed to get vaccinated, they are saying you should get vaccinated. Indeed, that’s not just their medical advice to you — it’s their stated belief (and I agree) that getting vaccinated is a pro-social means of safeguarding your entire community.

So I am saying, with a full understanding of the process, that the FDA ought to bring the official regulatory status of mRNA Covid vaccines into line with the scientific community’s actual understanding and attitude toward the vaccines.

The government is not worried that Pfizer and Moderna might be running a scam on us. They are charging $20 a dose, not $56,000. We are begging people to take these shots. So we should act like it.

FDA formal approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines isn’t the entirety of his argument, but it comes first because it’s so obvious. And the next steps — mandating the vaccines in places like schools and the military — require FDA formal approval.

★ Wednesday, 21 July 2021