I haven’t seen many people saying that. Most of the people who were critical of his move have said they don‘t think we should remove restrictions based on vaccine rate at all or that they want some level of vaccination which is much higher. You are making my point though. How you and I feel about those people is irrelevant. We don’t need you to get vaccinated, we need them to. If a firm target encourages people to come in and get the shot then it‘s a win.
I agree 100%. I'm all for a firm target. I have no problem with that.
But I've seen a lot of people saying that's not a sufficient incentive, because we may never hit the target, etc. And that the only incentive they would accept is if they can drop all restrictions the moment they get vaccinated. (and when asked about enforcement of such a system, they basically say it should be purely voluntary, which of course defeats the purpose of it being an incentive).
In this case I feel like we need to listen to what the hesitant people are saying.
As I said, you have a few different groups of "hesitant."
There are those who are legitimately hesitant due to concern about safety and side effects. (within that group, you have people legitimately concerned, and people just using it as an excuse).
But it's important to realize that there is a significant portion of the population (between 10%-30%) who won't do it because of conspiracy nonsense. They distrust government/scientists/mainstream media -- And they have Tucker Carlson, the highest rated show on Fox News, telling them that the Covid vaccine is a government conspiracy and they shouldn't get it. And the more the government or mainstream media or scientists try to educate them, they see that as proof of the conspiracy.
I had a colleague tell me, an otherwise educated person, "I'm not going to get the vaccine and let the Chinese Communists track me!"
The only way to get this crowd on board with vaccination is either get the right-wing media to play a different song, and/or use such a strong carrot/stick (like a strict vaccine passport requiring vaccination to keep your job).
Education is great and needed, but if someone feels the vaccine isn’t safe it’s going to be really hard to convince them otherwise. If someone is just indifferent to getting vaccinated because they don’t see enough upside for them personally I feel like that’s an opportunity to flip someone by offering that incentive.
The incentive has been offered since the start.
If the incentive of, "it protects your life and the life of your friends and family" isn't strong enough..
We have also always had the incentive of, "when enough people get vaccinated "....
So the people who have refused to get the vaccination despite those incentives, I don't think their mind is suddenly get changed by placing an exact number on the "enough people."
"Nope, I refuse to get vaccinated to protect my life.. I refuse to get vaccinated to protect my parents and grandparents... I refuse to get vaccinated so that we can eventually get to herd immunity and return to normal.... Wait a second, now you're saying there is exactly a 50% target?!?! SIGN ME UP FOR A VACCINE!"
Again, I've got nothing against setting a firm target. But I don't think it will significantly move the crowd that is "hesitant." At best, it will motivate those who were planning to get the vaccine anyway, to speed it up a little bit.