THE PANDEMIC LESSON WE’VE NOT FULLY LEARNED

Nearly two years into the pandemic, much has been learned: how the coronavirus transmits, how it can mutate, how vaccines can prevent sickness. But the biggest lesson of all has not sunk in deeply enough: The choices made by people, their individual and collective behavior, are key to human vulnerability and the outcome of the pandemic.

We are in the driver’s seat. We should act more like it.

The surge of infections in Japan is plummeting. From a peak of about 23,000 new daily coronavirus cases in August, Japan was down to 400 a day on Oct. 20. In Tokyo, The Associated Press reports that bars are packed, trains crowded and the mood is celebratory. In the capital, the positivity rate fell from 25% in late August to 1% this month. Why is this happening? Because the population decided to act. The percentage who had received full vaccination soared from 15% in early July to 65% in early October, and is now nearly 70%. This success reflects a choice people made to get vaccinated in large numbers just as a new wave of infection was hitting. At one point, more than 1.5 million shots a day were being administered. The Japanese also willingly shuttered nightlife venues when infections began to rise, and benefited from the widespread use of face masks, to which they were accustomed before the pandemic.

Russia, by contrast, is stalked by pandemic misery. Daily new cases have topped 37,000 and deaths reached over 1,000 a day, both pandemic records. Russia developed its own vaccine, but the campaign for it has been a flop. Only 45 million people, or about a third of the population, are fully vaccinated. President Vladimir Putin on Oct. 20 ordered most people to take off work for a week starting later this month and stay home in an attempt to stanch the spread. Russia’s sorry plight is also a direct result of choices people made. For much of last year, Putin and his government said COVID19 had been conquered and was not a big deal. Vaccines were offered and not taken. Moreover, many Russians concluded the government was lying about the statistics and the extent of disease. A large swath of the Russian public does not trust its government and does not trust the vaccine. The parliament speaker told a television station, “Unfortunately, we conducted an entire informational campaign about the coronavirus in Russia incorrectly and completely lost. People have no trust to go and get vaccinated, this is a fact.”

In Britain, vaccination uptake has been strong. But infections also remain stubbornly high — perhaps because of a decision to lift restrictions in July, leading to fewer people wearing face masks and more people flocking to crowded venues. In the United States, too, the overwhelming number of covid deaths are occurring among the unvaccinated. To refuse a life jacket in a stormy sea is a choice — a costly and terrible one.