Understanding vaccine hesitancy

Tablet MagazineThe same people who told you Brexit would never happen, that Trump would never win, that when he did win it was because of Russian collusion but also because of racism, that you must follow lockdowns while they don’t, that masks don’t work, that masks do work, that social justice protests during pandemic lockdowns are a form of “health intervention,” that ransacking African American communities in the name of fighting racism is a “mostly peaceful” form of protest, that poor and underserved children locked out of shuttered schools are “still learning,” that Jussie Smollett was a victim of a hate crime, that men are toxic, that there is an infinite number of genders, that COVID couldn’t have come from a lab until maybe it did, that closing borders is racist until maybe it isn’t, that you shouldn’t take Trump’s vaccine, that you must take the vaccine developed during the Trump administration, that Andrew Cuomo is a great leader, that Andrew Cuomo is a granny killer, that the number of COVID deaths is one thing and then another … are the same people telling you now that the vaccine is safe, that you must take it, and that if you don’t, you will be a second-class citizen.

Understand vaccine hesitancy now?

This is not how I arrived at vaccine hesitancy (or to be more honest, outright refusal) but it is part of it. I simply don't trust anything being pushed so hard, and when I evaluate the actual risks of the disease, it's just not scary (to me, at my age and general state of health). A vaccine is simply not necessary for the vast majority of the population at low risk even if they get the disease; and there are available treatment options if you do get it. And that's before you consider the risks of the vaccine itself (particularly antibody-dependent enhancement).

So my answer is and will be no, and that's not based on the way that health officials, media, and government collectively have squandered every bit of trust they ever had.

Of course, that doesn't help their case either.

This entry was published Wed Aug 25 22:42:49 CDT 2021 by TriggerFinger and last updated 2021-08-25 22:42:49.0. [Tweet]

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