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This isn't how it happened. The greatest period of vaccination uptake was the sweet spot in the rollout period where the vaccines first became widely available, around March, April, and May 2021. After that the growth in vaccine uptake slowed considerably; if it hadn't it's unlikely a mandate would have been put in place. When New York State first announced a vaccination mandate for certain employees at the end of July the state's 2-dose vaccination rate was at 57%; by the time the vaccination deadline hit in late November, the rate was 69%. Even if we assume that absolutely everyone who got vaccinated during this period only did so because of the inducements, it's still only a relatively small percentage of those who got vaccinated.
Well yes. But those last hold outs were the hardest to get. They resisted the "the vaccine protects you from other people" misconceptions of herd immunity being pushed. It's an important percentage, and without mandates, the data gaps would have been ammo for the "dissenters" of public health.
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