We should get people vaccinated against Covid-19

The case for a serious, whole-of-government effort

(Photo by Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images)

The Trump administration left Joe Biden with what was, by all accounts, a shambles of a plan to actually administer vaccines to people. But the combination of time, attention, and professionalism sorted those problems out, and we are now in a situation where anyone who wants a vaccine can get one pretty easily.

Unfortunately, a decent slice of the population seems disinclined to get one.

And doubly unfortunately, the Biden administration seems to me to be taking a somewhat unfocused and scattershot approach to dealing with that reality.

The White House, I think, ought to take a gut check. Do they believe that vaccinating a huge share of Americans to obtain herd immunity and prevent future outbreaks is important? If they don’t, that’s fine. But then I think they owe it to the world to adopt a more GOP-like attitude toward the virus. We can just say, look, people who want a vaccine should take it and people who don’t can…