COVID-19: Are the unvaxxed still dangerous?

Good evening. I’m Karen Kaplan, and it’s Tuesday, Nov. 8. I hope you found time to go to the polls or mail in your ballot. Here’s the latest on what’s happening with the coronavirus in California and beyond.

It’s been almost two years since the first COVID-19 vaccines first became available, and nearly one-third of Americans still haven’t completed their initial series of shots. One in 5 Americans haven’t rolled up their sleeves even once. This despite the fact that the shots are free, widely available and thoroughly tested, with more than 640 million doses administered in the U.S. alone.

Most importantly, the vaccines have a proven track record of reducing the risk of dying of COVID-19. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who were unvaccinated were six times more likely to die of COVID-19 compared with people who were fully vaccinated, and they were eight times more likely to die of the disease than people who were vaccinated and boosted.

That alone sounds like a pretty good incentive to get poked with a few needles. But plenty of other inducements have been added to the mix — free doughnuts, Apple AirPods, college scholarships and a $1.5-million cash jackpot.

Yet the ranks of the unvaccinated have barely budged, even after Novavax introduced a COVID-19 shot that uses the same tried-and-true technology as vaccines for tetanus, shingles and the flu. Vaccine mandates that might have forced some holdouts to get immunized are tied up in court and not being enforced.

Is there any point in continuing to try to change people’s minds? Are the 100 million or so Americans who never made it to “fully vaccinated” status even a threat to those around them at this stage of the pandemic?

Perhaps not.

“Clearly, the unvaccinated are a threat to themselves,” Dr. Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, told my colleague Melissa Healy. “The danger to the rest of us is a more debatable issue.”

Anti-vaccination demonstrators rally against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in Santa Monica in August 2021.

(Ringo Chiu / AFP via Getty Images)

The biggest reason why is that, even though only 68.5% of Americans are fully vaccinated, almost all of us have at least a little immunity by now. An analysis of blood samples from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico estimated that 58% of U.S. residents had been infected by the coronavirus as of February. That percentage is surely even higher now courtesy of the BA.5 surge from the late spring and summer.

The number of people who’ve never had a coronavirus infection is dwindling by the day. Some of those coronavirus virgins may be unvaccinated, but in all likelihood, they’re few and far between.

From an immunity standpoint, is an unvaccinated person who has recovered from COVID-19 any different from a fully…