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After a year and a half of the pandemic, in the middle of the fourth wave, people and governments are behaving irrationally, or more precisely stupidly, if not idiotically. For the purposes of this post, however, I decided to keep my cool and stick to the word "irrationally."

Let's start with the numbers. Today, 43% of the world's population is fully vaccinated, while for developing countries, where one in ten people live, the figure is less than 2%.

Last year, doctors predicted that societies would achieve collective immunity at a level of 60-70% vaccination of the population. Today, they are raising these thresholds and even claiming that with new mutations of the virus, achieving collective immunity may not be possible at all.

Comparing the peak of the third wave of coronavirus with the current state of the fourth wave, we can see that in Portugal, where the vaccination rate is 81% of the population (the highest in the world), infections have fallen by 90% and deaths by 95%. In Spain, where 76% of the population has been vaccinated, infections have fallen by 90% and deaths by 95%. In Italy, with a vaccination rate of 65%, infections have fallen by 80% and deaths by 90%. In the Great Britain, with a vaccination rate of 65%, infections have fallen by 40% and deaths by 90%. In Israel, with a vaccination rate of 63%, infections have increased by 10% and deaths have fallen by 50%. In Germany, with a vaccination rate of 62%, infections have fallen by 50% and deaths by 80%. In the US, with a vaccination rate of 54%, infections fell by 30% and deaths by 50%. In Russia, with a vaccination rate of 28%, infections fell by 30% and deaths rose by 30%. It is difficult to talk about these data for Poland yet, because the fourth wave has not yet gained momentum here. However, looking at statistics from other countries and taking into account our low vaccination rate and data from the third wave, in the fourth wave we should expect about 15 thousand infections per day and 300 deaths.

The above data clearly shows that the higher the level of vaccination of society, the more the virus's destructive power weakens. It should also be noted that even a vaccination level above 70% does not guarantee that the virus will disappear completely.

Vaccinations undoubtedly protect against infection and death. According to the Polish Ministry of Health, among all 1.3 million Poles infected with covid since the beginning of vaccinations, less than 1% are vaccinated. And among all 40 thousand people who died from covid since we started vaccinating, less than 2% are vaccinated. This is a good indication of the effectiveness of vaccines.

Vaccines are the only weapon that people have invented to fight covid. It is not a lockdown, which has proven ineffective and has had hugely negative side effects. Fortunately, it seems that politicians have understood this and will no longer close restaurants and gyms in any country.
It's similar with masks. They can't stop Covid and I think the requirement to wear them is irrational. Masks of course limit the spread of the virus to some extent, in my opinion small, but I am convinced that when a person spreading the virus appears in a crowded metro, regardless of the fact that all passengers, including the carrier, are wearing masks, they will not be able to stop the transmission of the virus.

Simply put, the virus is transmitted in crowds, and masks can at most slightly reduce transmission. However, we cannot forbid people from meeting, we tried to do so last year with disastrous results.

A completely different issue is the consistency of governments, or rather the lack thereof, in relation to the control of the requirement to wear masks. During my August trip to Rome, I experienced this consequence first-hand. In Rome, the obligation to wear masks indoors is strictly enforced by the police. The caretaker of the tenement house where I lived almost reported me to the police for not putting on a mask when walking from the entrance to the building to the elevator, even though the tenement house was empty due to the holidays. In the pub district, thousands of people crowded the streets and restaurant gardens without masks, because there is no obligation to wear masks outdoors there, but if someone wanted to sit inside, they had to show a Covid passport. In our country, during last year's lockdown, the police immediately issued a ticket for not wearing a mask, and if someone did not put one on in public transport, they were immediately reprimanded by other passengers. Today, the Polish police no longer issue tickets because they received such instructions from the government, who do not want to offend their voters, because a large part of Poles, especially those who adore good change, believe that the obligation to wear masks takes away their freedom, or that Covid is a hoax. This is, of course, irrational.

Almost half of Poles do not want to get vaccinated and this is very irrational. This is of course not just our Polish problem. Most European countries have it, but we, with our fifty percent, are at the back of Europe.

Encouraging people to get vaccinated, organizing lotteries, and conducting promotional campaigns makes sense, but is unlikely to bring any significant results.

Governments should immediately introduce restrictions for unvaccinated people. Those who do not do this are acting irrationally. This has already been introduced in many places in Western Europe. In Rome, it was not possible to enter any museum without a Covid passport. In Poland, introducing such restrictions will be rather difficult, because our rulers are afraid of offending voters and pretend to be righteous and just, claiming that such restrictions may violate civil rights.

The greatest irrationality of governments is not making vaccinations mandatory. Since vaccinations are the only way to stop the virus, and the virus is a serious threat to people, it seems obvious to me that every sensible country should introduce it immediately. And I think that all the arguments about human rights and civil liberties do not apply here, because in a state of extreme necessity, in a state of threat to human life, certain decisions should be made without fail.

I am terrified by the words of a man elected president of our country who says he will never agree to introduce mandatory vaccinations. This is nothing more than ingratiating himself with his voters and making it clear that he doesn't give a damn about those 100,000 excess Covid deaths.

In my opinion, neither Western governments nor our government will make vaccinations mandatory. The only difference is the reason why they will not do it. Western governments will not do it because they have a careless understanding of human rights, and our government - out of fear of falling ratings.