THE UNVACCINATED

"99.5% of deaths are among the unvaccinated." US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on recent coronavirus deaths.

The anti vaccine myth first took hold in the world back in nineteen ninety eight when former British surgeon Andrew Wakefield published a poorly researched study claiming that there was a link between certain vaccinations and autism in the medical paper The Lancet.  Although the article was later retracted by that paper, the damage was done; propped up by celebrities like Jenny McCarthy, lies about one of the greatest scientific advances in the history of the world were spread all over the media.  The one good piece of news is the anti vaccine belief never hit the mainstream in the US, with it mostly staying on the fringes of society.  

Sadly, the same cannot be said about the anti vaccine movement that has arisen during the covid crisis.  Recently, the European Union exceeded America in the percentage of its people being vaccinated, and with recent polls showing a whopping forty seven percent of Republicans saying that they do not plan to get the vaccine, these depressing trends appear to be ready to continue.  The reasons people give for not getting vaccinated range from reasonable sounding (the vaccines are too new) to insane (magnetism!).  It is truly upsetting to consider that while other countries are begging for more vaccinations, many parts of America are running a surplus!

So why are so many Americans turning away from a vaccine that  has been used on  billions of people around the world, even as a more contagious strain of the virus is spreading around the nation? It appears to be a unique brand of American stubbornness, combined with anti intellectualism.  Now while there is some distrust of the vaccine in African American communities (who's basis for distrust of the government regarding health has historical precedent) it is mostly in politically conservative, mostly white communities that the anti vaccine attitudes run the strongest.  Most of this is due to the downplaying of the virus that the Donald Trump administration did almost from the beginning of the pandemic: from him calling the coronavirus a "liberal hoax" to his claims that it will disappear when the weather gets warmer, Trump shrugged off the threat for a long time before finally starting to care when it kept getting worse.  Even then, he seemed to support anti mask protests going on in places like Michigan.  And, taking their cues from the president, the right wing media fell in line with him, shrugging off the virus for far too long  even as cases soared.

To be fair, both Trump and the right wing media have equivocated on this issue: Trump got the vaccine himself, but allowed no photography of the moment and defends people who don't want to get it.  Conservative commentator Sean Hannity spoke out for vaccines, before just seconds later when he condemned universities that have vaccination requirements.  Obviously, coming after months of misleading covid statements coming from both the former president and Fox News, this is all a little too little and a little too late. 

While Joe Biden has admirably tried to encourage people to get the shot, the sad fact of the matter is that the more he talks about it, the more conservatives are digging in, just to defy him. To them risking their own lives and the lives of people around them means less than admitting that they're wrong.   (Anyone who's ever argued with a Trump supporter knows how hard it can be to change someone's mind).  And everything from offering free marijuana to lottery tickets hasn't moved the needle enough. Right now Biden is considering requiring all civilian federal employees to either be vaccinated or regularly tested, and I absolutely think that that is the right thing to do.  And I hope that private businesses and universities join in on vaccine mandates.  Sure, the right wing media will howl, and there will be protests (a similar decision made by the French government was recently protested) I still think it's the right thing to do (the decision in France  also led to a big increase in people getting vaccinated).  We need to show the unvaccinated that life will be much harder for them until they finally give in and just get the same shot that hundreds of millions of other Americans have already gotten.  Putting it simply, some people's desire to "own the libs" is not more important than a return to normalcy.