Vaccination rates were damaged in the long run by misleading people into thinking the vaccines prevent coronavirus transmission, rather than reducing the severity of infection. (Yes, that impression was definitely given, no matter how much revisionists claim nobody ever said it.)
Overselling the vaccines goosed inoculations early on, making for some nice headlines, but in the long run it hindered the effort, because it gave the public more reason to distrust the authorities and question the value of vaccination.
It was profoundly demoralizing to be told, "Never mind, we're still in permanent panic mode, we'll still have restrictions, you still have to wear masks, this will probably never be over." Earlier this year, everyone up to Biden was pushing vaccines as the ticket to normal life.
If people had been told the honest truth about vaccination's benefits from the beginning, told the shots would essentially turn Covid-19 into a nasty nonlethal flu without eradicating it completely, early adoption would have been slower but long-term we'd be better off.
But that honest approach was unthinkable to the ruling class, because it would have involved PERSUADING people to make rational decisions about risks and benefits and respecting those decisions, rather than terrorizing people, issuing orders, and punishing noncompliance.
The pandemic was bureaucratized every step of the way, and bureaucracies only think in terms of compliance metrics. We said "do this," Y number of people did not comply, everything that goes wrong is their fault. That's one reason the bureaucracy is obsessed with masks.
Even now, the preferred tactics for making the hesitant get vaccinated are about command, terror, and punishment - the unvaccinated should be treated like second-class citizens, let them die if they get sick, treat them like stupid idiots, f**k your freedom, etc.
Blaming the unvaccinated for "Covid surges" is illogical if the vaccines reduce severity rather than preventing transmission. That's why heavily-vaccinated areas are still having surges. The panicked focus on "cases" and blaming the unvaxed hinders the argument for vaccination.
We should have stayed with vaccination as the route back to normal life, accepting there would still be "cases" but now they aren't a mortal threat. That's the basis of a rational, honest appeal to the hesitant - and if they still refuse, their decision should be respected.
But again, that's unthinkable to our debased culture and political system, which has deliberately destroyed our ability to make both collective and individual cost/benefit, risk/reward decisions. Persuasion is the coin of an entirely different realm than 2021 America.
Accepting that we'll still have cases and surges, but the vaccines make them manageable so we can return to normal life, would dilute the atmosphere of panic, emergency, and command the ruling class finds so profitable. It would require admitting the unvaxed are not to blame.
Viewed from the perspective of bloated, arrogant hyper-bureaucracy, such a rational approach to risk, benefit, and responsibility is inconceivable. Compliance MUST be emphasized. The noncompliant MUST be blamed. The bureaucracy MUST be seen giving orders and imposing policy.
Politicized bureaucracies, you see, do not manage problems. They manage blame. They see stats and headlines, not individuals. Collectivist ideology simply cannot process the notion of people making their own decisions based on accurate and unbiased information. /end
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