Thank you for as usual a well-reasoned, reasonable, and thoughtful response. My follow-up question then would be, (not to you in particular, just in the general sense) at what point would this calculus change? Meaning if let's say the data showed that getting vaccinated while still great at preventing serious disease and worse, only gave say a 20% increase in protection from getting and spreading the virus, would it then still make sense to mandate it? What would be the number?
Your choice of the word "calculus" is apt. I think there would be a more complicated calculation involved, not simply based on the specific vaccine effectiveness. I expect public health experts would take into consideration how transmissible the disease is, how easy it is for people to avoid catching it through behavioral changes, how effective and available the treatment is, how much push back to expect from those in society who oppose mandates and/or vaccines, and probably some other factors.
On the one hand, you're right that if vaccine effectiveness were very low, then we'd see fewer mandates at the societal level, and more emphasis on the individual level, making vaccine available to those who are especially motivated to take whatever steps possible to protect themselves, however small that protection might be.
But I don't know that there would be a particular number for that. Think about flu vaccines, which are 40-60% effective in most years. We don't have mandates for those, in general, in part because flu is less transmissible than covid and many of those who would be most endangered by the flu (extreme young and extreme old) are able to stay home during flu season. But there
are mandates for flu vaccines for some health care workers, because even though the vaccine is only partially effective, an infected worker could inadvertently transmit it to the already susceptible patients they care for.
Or, as
@S209 said more succinctly, it's more complicated than a simple number.
