If you weren’t in a coma last week, you’ll recall that Joe Biden delivered an incoherent, divisive rant regarding the mandating of vaccines for employees of private businesses. When I did my write-up on that speech, a lot stuck out to me. But it was the repetition of the idea that the vaccinated need to be “protected” from the unvaccinated that really struck me as being the most nonsensical thing he said.

Now, Kamala Harris is repeating the same line.

By vaccinating the unvaccinated, increasing our testing and masking, and protecting the vaccinated, we can end this pandemic. That’s exactly what we are committed to doing.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 12, 2021

Let’s game this out via the available data we have.

Why would the vaccinated need to be protected by causing any imposition on the unvaccinated? Putting aside all the arguments about communal responsibility regarding protecting the unvaccinated who lack natural immunity, scientifically, how is a vaccinated person affected by an unvaccinated person? If the vaccine works, and I’m assured that Harris now believes it does, then those that are vaccinated are protected by virtue of, and stick with me here, being vaccinated.

I realize the response is going to be “but the unvaccinated spread COVID and that might lead to a breakthrough case for the vaccinated.” So let’s talk about that as well.

To start, the chance of a vaccinated person even needing to go to the hospital after being infected with the coronavirus is one in 160,000. That was a stat Biden himself repeated in his speech last week. Given that, the risks are essentially non-existent even if the vaccinated are around an unvaccinated person who gives them COVID. Nothing about those chances justifies any kind of segregation between the two groups.

But far more importantly, the vaccinated can still spread COVID. In fact, we are seeing large spikes in almost universally vaccinated countries like Israel right now. Deaths are low because the vaccine works to prevent serious illness, but that’s beside the point in this discussion. The topic here is “protecting” the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. Yet, if both the unvaccinated and the vaccinated can spread the disease, something that is clearly true (per the CDC no less), then claims that the vaccinated need to be protected from the unvaccinated do not add up.

In short, what Harris said makes no sense at all. The only reason the vaccinated would need protection from the unvaccinated is if the vaccine doesn’t work to protect against serious illness. Is that what Harris is saying in her comment? It sure seems like that is the message, though, she’s not meaning for it to be.

The same fallacy was repeated on MSNBC again this morning.

NYT health reporter @SherylNYT: “Getting vaccinated is not a personal choice, it’s not. It’s something that we do for the community … your personal choice ends where my right not to get killed by an infectious disease begins." pic.twitter.com/7Nkn7a5AtF

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 13, 2021

Is this health reporter vaccinated? I’d bet my life-savings she is. So does she think only the unvaccinated can give her COVID? Does she think the vaccine doesn’t protect her from getting serious illness?

The incoherence of the narratives surrounding the vaccine is the problem here. If the government would just be honest and admit that 1) natural immunity exists and 2) the vaccine doesn’t stop the spread, then we could at least have an honest discussion about when the vaccine is vitally necessary. Any messaging strategy that focuses on what matters most is going to be far more successful than a dishonest, shotgun messaging strategy.

Instead, Dr. Anthony Fauci pretends he doesn’t know what natural immunity is while Kamala Harris insinuates the vaccine doesn’t even work. It’s absolute madness.