I haven't read the WSJ piece, but I wondered about this as well. The timing of the mandate vs. the onset of omicron wave seems like the mandate may end up being less useful. With a 2-round vaccine requiring an additional two weeks to reach efficacy, it seems that we might be on the backside of the omicron wave before vaccinations could …
I haven't read the WSJ piece, but I wondered about this as well. The timing of the mandate vs. the onset of omicron wave seems like the mandate may end up being less useful. With a 2-round vaccine requiring an additional two weeks to reach efficacy, it seems that we might be on the backside of the omicron wave before vaccinations could start becoming relevant in the equation. Factor in the requirement to wait a certain period after covid infection prior to vaccination, and it makes things even more complicated.
Pragmatically--and without having read the WSJ piece--they may be right.
However, lots of things aren't 100% effective from a pragmatic perspective, yet we still do them as a society, e.g., laws against drunk driving. There is a "messaging" aspect of a mandate that would still seem useful even if, pragmatically, it won't yield all the benefits.
The other problem is that this also ignores the reality that delta does still exist, and it's not clear that having omicron confers any real protection against delta...but vaccines definitely do.
So, overall, I think there's still value in the mandate, just as much against omicron.
I haven't read the WSJ piece, but I wondered about this as well. The timing of the mandate vs. the onset of omicron wave seems like the mandate may end up being less useful. With a 2-round vaccine requiring an additional two weeks to reach efficacy, it seems that we might be on the backside of the omicron wave before vaccinations could start becoming relevant in the equation. Factor in the requirement to wait a certain period after covid infection prior to vaccination, and it makes things even more complicated.
Pragmatically--and without having read the WSJ piece--they may be right.
However, lots of things aren't 100% effective from a pragmatic perspective, yet we still do them as a society, e.g., laws against drunk driving. There is a "messaging" aspect of a mandate that would still seem useful even if, pragmatically, it won't yield all the benefits.
The other problem is that this also ignores the reality that delta does still exist, and it's not clear that having omicron confers any real protection against delta...but vaccines definitely do.
So, overall, I think there's still value in the mandate, just as much against omicron.