As we've been documenting, more and more anti-vax right media personas are catching Covid. Because they are not vaccinated, their illness is severe and some die.

But that hasn't been enough to influence a large swath of Trump voters to get vaccinated in red states.

When the Delta variant took off, more people began getting vaccinated, but then Fox News, in all its continual grievance style, brought on pundits to attack the CDC, Dr. Fauci, and all safety protocols during this pandemic.

So of course, there has been an uptick in those loudly refusing to be vaccinated.

In a Washington Post op-ed several days ago, Andy Slavitt pointed out where we actually are with COVID.

Even after the recent decline in cases, Americans are dying from covid-19 at the pace of 440,000 a year. Deaths from the opioid epidemic, by contrast, reached almost 70,000 last year. Covid-19 is still here and spreading fast.

Whether each of us takes the necessary precautions to keep our country safe remains to be seen.

President Biden has been pushing vaccinations and getting supplies out to the entire country in incredible numbers, but it's up to people to actually get the shot.

This is not enough:

If they are unconvinced by now, they never will be.

Unless and until their family members and friends start getting infected and they get a front-row seat to the danger of COVID. They'll only change their minds when they watch their friends die, and maybe not even then.