Or not…Now, barely three months later, the promises of herd immunity have NOT come to pass. Cases in the United States are soaring. Hospitalizations and deaths are also rising.
Throughout July and August, vaccine advocates have tried to blame these trends on fact that the United States has not hit the vaccine benchmarks they hoped. They have incorrectly called this current outbreak a pandemic of the unvaccinated.
That argument has one problem. Israel and Britain – which have essentially reached the vaccination levels that advocates promised were necessary for herd immunity – are having even worse outbreaks this summer.
In Israel, 60 percent of the entire population and 80 percent of adults are fully vaccinated. In Britain, almost 90 percent of adults have received at least one dose and 76 percent have received both.
Yet positive tests and serious hospitalizations in Israel have risen 20-fold since early July. Hospitalized patients and patients on ventilators in Britain have risen sevenfold since early June and are far higher than this time last year.