Allow me to propose a “maximally cynical” prediction for how the US will handle COVID from here…
The establishment is going to acknowledge vaccine failure soon, but the narrative is going to be "They are only failing because of the delta variant, and the delta variant only emerged because too many people didn't get vaxxed." There is going to be a huge push for mandatory/universal vaccination when the hot new "delta effective" vaxes drop in 4Q. Biden will sign an executive order mandating universal vaccination. They will deploy the military "for logistics and distribution."
The first half of that is serious prediction, the second half is fun speculation.
I do think a mandatory vax executive order is more likely than not, but it'll be intentionally vague on enforcement and actually enforced basically nowhere. "Laws that technically exist but we don't bother enforcing them most of the time" are becoming increasingly common in society in general. And the fact that they won't enforce it will prevent it from being challenged in court. It'll primarily be a scare tactic, but it'll work on most corporations at least.
As far as the overall hypothesis of vaccine failure goes, I know that the excuse so far is “Well sure, cases are rising, but vaccinated people don’t die or get serious complications!” But I think the problem with the whole "it doesn't matter if cases are rising among the vaccinated, because vaccination reduces risk of serious illness and death" is a non-starter for the mass media and the tens of millions who still pay attention to it.
The media has defined the seriousness of the pandemic based entirely on case counts since day one. Pointing out that most cases aren't a very big deal and that most people are unlikely to have serious illness or death has always been thought of as the last refuge of the ignorant science-denier. You're asking every institution to turn on a dime and shift from their primary source of panic to a denialist talking-point. And expecting the public to go along with something like "regular vaccination and the horrible side effects of it are needed to go from having a very low likelihood of serious illness/death to a very very low likelihood of serious illness/death." It doesn't really matter if that's true or not - it's just a non-starter from a PR angle and they aren't going to go along with it. The second we stop obsessing over case counts is the second the pandemic ends in this country.
I was skeptical of this prediction when you posted it on DSL, but I think I'm coming around.
I guess I underestimated the media's willingness to run with "pandemic of the unvaccinated" at the same time as "you're putting us all in danger".