Funny, Ha-Ha?

I fail to see the humor...

For what were billed as "5 scathingly funny cartoons about anti-vaxxers jeopardizing herd immunity," there wasn't a laugh in the bunch of them. And so I find myself wondering just what "The Week Staff" decided was so "scathingly funny" about the whole thing, especially because the cartoons don't come across as even attempting to be humorous.

And, in my estimation, this is true of a lot of political cartooning. Not that political cartoons cant be funny. Local cartoonist David Horsey has done some pretty hysterical bits over the years. This one on people over 65 deciding to loosen up after being vaccinated is a good example. And while some his portrayals of conservatives and Republicans veer into carricature, one can see the punch line that's being set up. And that's what was missing in all five of the cartoons that The Week put forward as somehow "scathingly funny." Partisan punch lines may not be funny to the people at whose expense the joke is being made, but at least there's a joke being presented.

It's also a curious headline. What, exactly, would be funny about the nation failing to reach herd immunity? Although, since herd immunity isn't dependent on how, precisely, one becomes immune, I'm not sure that the headline is even accurate. It's become something of an article of faith for many on the American Left that immunity via vaccination is somehow the only way to become genuinely "immune" from the SARS-2 coronavirus, despite the fact that a) it hasn't been show (at least, not that I can find) that having been infected confers no protection and b) the currently available vaccines don't convey 100% protection themselves. In theory, any virus that spreads through a population more quickly than new people are introduced into that population will eventually run out of people in infect if people's immune systems adapt properly. So vaccine refuseniks cannot, by themselves, prevent a population from reaching herd immunity. (Besides, calculating herd immunity on the scale of a nation the size of the United States seems like a bad idea, since neither vaccinations or infections are likely to be evenly distributed across such a large landmass and population.

Presenting the fact that there are people in the United States who are, for various reasons, unwilling to be vaccinated humorously doesn't come across as an impossible task. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone had done so. But if the five cartoons offered were what the staff at The Week had to work with, perhaps a different headline is in order.