Wasted lives, wasted time, and $5.7 billion wasted on treating the unvaccinated

The costs of treating unvaccinated people for coronavirus infections were $5.7 billion between June and August of 2021, a new report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation has concluded. In the world of health care, that might not be much. Americans spent about $3.8 trillion dollars on health care in 2019, so $5.7 billion represents just 0.15% of overall health care spending. But in the world that most of us live in, $5.9 billion is a lot. It represents a staggering loss that didn’t have to happen. Since mid-April, safe and effective vaccines have been available without charge to virtua...