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I wish it were that simple.
With fewer people vaccinated, herd immunity is weakened. As I understand it, this means even vaccinated children will come into contact more frequently with infected people, thereby increasing the chance that even vaccinated people get sick.
Herd immunity doesn't exist until a high enough percentage of the population is inoculated, so if you can't realistically hit that threshold it's worthless to the community to try and get as many people as you can.
Also, herd immunity only works when the vaccine prevents you from transmitting the disease to others in the first place.
I know this article is about vaccination in general, but many people are going to view it especially in the context of the covid pandemic—so it's important to note out that the covid vaccine does not satisfy either of the above requirements. Whatever the value may be of achieving herd immunity in any other case, it unequivocally does not apply to covid. I'm not implying that you were saying it did, btw, just advising people—especially the vehement, single-minded detractors and defenders both—not to treat vaccines as if they're all the same.
I have concerns about your statement that achieving herd immunity is worthless when failing to reach the threshold. Is there not a distinction between herd immunity within a household or school and herd immunity within a city or state or country? Shouldn't the "population" be in the context of communities with close and frequent interactions?
The basic premise is that the community needs to be inoculated enough so that any breakout doesn't have enough viable hosts around to jump to and dies out before it can gain momentum among a wider population. This benefits others in the community who are still vulnerable for whatever reason and is a legitimate argument for why people should care if other people get vaccinated. If the threat is dire enough it could even be argued that others should be forced against their will. The costs of implementing herd immunity can be quite high, as well as the benefits—but for us to begin even thinking about whether it's worth paying, we must be sure we can realistically achieve it.
If the level of inoculation among the population is too low the virus will spread. That's what's important—that's why it's all or nothing. The fact that it's slower, or that it won't overwhelm hospitals as quickly, is so trivial in comparison as to be inconsequential. The only thing that matters is that it's still there. Fast or slow, it will still infect the entire world, and the vulnerable won't be safe.
Given all of the above, it goes without saying that a vaccine that only stops a virus from making you sick but doesn't stop it from spreading is next to useless when it comes to herd immunity—that much should be obvious. I would think it should be obvious too that the covid vaccine is one of such a type, but if you're interested in arguing that here or elsewhere—or anything else for that matter—please know that ridiculing and dismissing others because you think they're so obviously wrong and incapable of being saved, is in fact the only thing preventing anyone from trying to fix it.
Is there not a huge distinction between "not infected" and "safe"? Hospitals that aren't overwhelmed will be able to treat patients more effectively, so it should be way safer to have a slower spread of disease as it allows more patients to get better care.
You also didn't entirely address my point. If you need 90% of a population to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity for a disease, and 90% of an elementary school is fully vaccinated, how are the remaining 10% not protected if school is the only real place they go out and socially interact?