Without full vaccination, Idaho is rushing headlong into the great COVID-19 unknown

It seems quaint now to remember when we thought with hope that Idaho would achieve herd immunity to COVID-19 and approach something like an 80% vaccination rate.

Sitting at around 40% today and beginning to plateau, our hopes of coming even close to mass vaccination are quickly becoming dashed.

Let’s be clear: The only way to truly get “back to normal” is for nearly everyone to get the vaccine. It’s as simple as that. If everyone gets vaccinated, it’s game over for the novel coronavirus.

Back to normal means children back in school with no masks, filling Albertsons Stadium with 36,000 fans for a Boise State football game, getting our restaurants and bars back to full production. If you want to go back to normal, get the vaccine.

Alas, with each passing day of surplus supply of the vaccine, it’s becoming increasingly clear that’s just a pipe dream.

Despite that, many people are ready to have a normal life again. Those who are vaccinated are ready to go back to restaurants and bars, movie theaters, sporting events, parties and social gatherings. “Hey, I’m vaccinated, what do I care?”

If you take the example of a football game at Albertsons Stadium, if we hit 50% vaccinated, about 18,000 people could be assumed to be vaccinated, while 18,000 wouldn’t be. With the virus — and its growing number of variants — still in circulation, it’s almost certain that there would be spread among some of those 18,000 unvaccinated people. Some of them might have no or few symptoms. Some might get slightly ill. Some might get really sick. Some might require hospitalization. Some might die.

Now that the vaccine is readily available to everyone 16 and older, it has become an individual choice when it comes to vaccination. If people refuse to be vaccinated and then get sick and die, that’s on them.

How many is the big question.

An ongoing goal, one that Gov. Brad Little has emphasized from the get-go, is to not overwhelm the health care system. If a couple dozen people become ill and require hospitalization, that won’t be a big deal. If a couple dozen turn around and spread it to a few hundred, who spread it to a few hundred more, then it becomes a problem.

Because, remember, for those who choose to reject the vaccine, it’s not just your health care that you’re affecting. If you and other unvaccinated people overwhelm the health care system, that could lead to crisis standards of care, forcing medical providers to decide who gets life-saving treatment and who doesn’t.

One need only look at India to see that the pandemic is far from over and that danger still lurks. India recorded 400,000 new cases on Wednesday alone. Deaths are spiking, approaching 4,000 daily. It is a sad commentary on our country that while thousands of people in India are dying every day, illustrating the staying power of this awful virus, some Americans refuse to get the vaccine. Let us repeat: If we all get the vaccine, problem solved.

And it’s not just COVID-19. If our health care system were to be overwhelmed with those patients, that will affect people who go into the hospital for heart attacks, injuries from a car crash or treatment for cancer.

We do have some things going for us, though.

The vaccination rate for those most vulnerable, those 65 and older, is around 68% in Idaho. That’s not great, but it’s better than the 28% we’re seeing in the rest of the population.

Still, that’s about 92,000 Idahoans older than 64 who are still unvaccinated. That’s a scary number.

Some might say they’re not getting the vaccine because they’ve already had COVID-19. Idaho has had 188,435 recorded cases so far — and who knows how many that have not been reported — so we can take them out of the equation, right? The problem is that we don’t know how long that natural immunity lasts, and there are many stories of people getting COVID-19 multiple times — and landing in the hospital.

Regardless, many Idahoans and many Idaho institutions are rushing headlong into a new normal.

School districts in the Treasure Valley are planning graduation ceremonies without limitations, and the Ford Idaho Center is “fully open,” according to its general manager, to host graduation ceremonies and other events without attendance restrictions, even though Idaho is still in Stage 3 (remember those stages?), which means, “Gatherings should be limited to 50 or fewer people and adhere to the physical distancing and sanitation requirements.”

Of course, those were all mere suggestions, anyway, so no need to follow them if you didn’t want to.

While herd immunity and “back to normal” are likely to elude us, we are shaping what a “new normal” looks like through every vaccination and each effort to protect our vulnerable residents and our health care system.

We suspect that as time marches on and it becomes clear that about half the population won’t get the vaccine, we’ll start to see the private sector pick up the slack, recognizing that the best and only way to get back to business as usual is through vaccinations. But a return to “business as usual” for most of our businesses and institutions will be redefined if we don’t vaccinate enough to eradicate the virus.

Getting on an airplane, traveling to another city or country, sending your kid to school, getting service at a restaurant or store, or perhaps even getting employment might mean showing your vaccination card.

Until then, though, we’re sort of heading into a great unknown, as more people remove their masks and go back to life, many without being vaccinated. But do we have enough people vaccinated to prevent massive outbreaks, hospitalizations and deaths, which is what we saw in 2020?

Whether we like it or not, we’re all about to find out.