If only you believe like I believe we’d get by

The COVID vaccines continue to prove to be miraculously effective:

Amid a global tragedy, the striking effectiveness of vaccines against the coronavirus stands out as one of the pandemic’s few good news stories for humanity.

And the vaccines are the success story that, so far, has kept on going. Vaccinations are proving to be just as effective in the real world as they were in clinical trials, while remaining highly protective against the more contagious variants spreading worldwide. And two recent studies found that immunity to the virus could last for years.

While some viruses, most notably HIV, have eluded vaccination efforts for decades, SARS-CoV-2 has turned out to be an ideal target.

“It’s going to sound odd, but the truth is we humans sort of lucked out,” said James Musser, a pathologist at Houston Methodist Hospital. “It doesn’t always go this way with vaccines.”

In November, initial reports of the stunning 95% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna came as a breakthrough moment just ahead of a crushing surge in US cases. Those results were far above the 50% efficacy threshold for shots set by the FDA in October of last year, and they well exceeded the 70% to 75% bar that some, including Anthony Fauci, chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had initially hoped for.

“Nobody really expected it to be this good,” said vaccinologist George Rutherford of the University of California, San Francisco. “It’s remarkable. It’s why we invested in molecular biology for the last 40 years.”

None of which is stopping Republican bullshit artists from urging their supporters not to take them, or opposing anything to incentivize taking them:

The partisan divide in Covid-19 vaccinations is becoming starker as the nation inches toward President Joe Biden’s goal of providing at least one shot to 70 percent of adults by July 4, complicating efforts to reach the unvaccinated in areas still vulnerable to virus outbreaks.

All but one of the 39 congressional districts where at least 60 percent of residents have received a coronavirus shot are represented by Democrats, according to a Harvard University analysis that presents one of the most detailed looks yet at the partisan split behind the nation’s diverging vaccination drive. By contrast, Republicans represent all but two of the 30 districts where fewer than one-third of residents have received a shot.

I don’t really want to consider how many Republicans would show up to a cookout featuring a cyanide-and-Kool-Aid cocktail if Trump and Tucker Carlson invited them.