It's far too late to educate people who are 40+ who gobble up misinformation. The "friction" in society comes from this uneducated group. If you have a proposal for educating these people to get them to vaccinate, the world's public health agencies are all ears.

Vaccine mandates and the threat of vaccine mandates in the US in particular have successfully driven up vaccination rates and allowed removal of pandemic restrictions earlier than would have been possible otherwise.

This view is wrong and that is the primary cause of problems with antivax.

The studies show that giving better information helps to undecided. Whereas vaccine mandates do not help much for staunch antivax.

The real world example (for example, the UK) also shows this in practice. No vaccine mandates are really needed to ensure high vaccination rates.

Vaccine mandates may have improved vaccination rates in certain groups but those groups are not most at risk. The total impact on vaccination rates and public health may even be negative as with more elderly have refused vaccine due to mandates than without the mandates.

> The studies show that giving better information helps to undecided.

I think you're discounting an incredibly powerful distortion field created by malevolent misinformation by some very sick and confused people.