Some recent surveys have hinted as to why there are so many Americans who are reluctant to receive a Covid-19 vaccination. There are several reasons: They don't trust the mixed messages from the government, the mainstream news media, and they especially they don't trust so-called experts. They really don't trust Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Rochelle Walensky. They certainly don't believe the TV commercials and the folks going door-to-door. As a society we are wasting a lot of time and effort with the current methods of trying to convince the reluctant to hold out their arms

The mixed message that the reluctant are receiving is that the vaccines are very effective at creating immunity to Covid-19. Yet, at the same time, over and over, we are told to keep wearing masks and maintain social distancing. Did I say over and over.. yes. they say it over and over. The mixed-message received by the reluctant is that if the vaccines are effective why they hell do I need to wear a mask and not meet with my friends?

We were originally told that unless we wore N95 masks we weren't protecting ourselves from getting Covid-19. We were told we should wear less effective masks and save the N95s for health care professionals. We were told that we should wear the less-effective more-common masks because it would slow the spread of the disease from us to others. This seems to have worked. But again the message is mixed - We won't get Covid-19 if we are vaccinated and wearing masks protects us. No the masks never protected us... they protected others.

Ok, the experts go on to say that the ever evolving Covid-19 has new strains or variants and that the vaccines may not be as effective on them. That is a stretch. The UK, the South African and other variants have been around for months and over 100 million Americans have been vaccinated. It is time to put-up or shut-up about the variants. What do the statistics indicate (as opposed to the more frequently used What does the science say?) about this? How many Americans who have been vaccinated have developed the UK or the South African variant of Covid-19? Why don't they show us those numbers.? Without seeing any evidence to the contrary, I think it is safe to assume that if the vaccines are effective at all, then they are effective against the current variants.

Most people who are reluctant to get Covid-19 vaccination are not kooky anti-vaxers. This isn't a right-wing Trumpian - Fox News conspiracy. Most of the reluctant have merely lost their trust in the experts.

We are told over and over again that we need to get vaccinated and we need to wear masks. If we truly want to the vaccine reluctant people to get vaccinated we need to get rid of any mask requirement for the vaccinated. We need new experts and we need them to say Get Vaccinated or Wear a Mask. We need to immediately eliminate all Covid-19 restrictions for those who are vaccinated and we need a reasonably fool-proof method to differentiate the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.