Science: We’ve eradicated many diseases through vaccines!
Republicans: Hold my beer!
Unfortunately, this particular brand of dumb has found a home on both sides of the isle. Part of the reason it’s been so successful at proliferating and creating problems with reemerging diseases.
Going back maybe a decade or so I remember most anti-vaxers I encountered being real crunchy-granola, hippie liberal types, often the types who would go on about natural remedies, crystals, etc. There was the odd conservative looney in the bunch, but they were more of a fringe minority.
I haven’t personally encountered many of them liberal types lately, it definitely seems like there’s been a pretty significant shift. I’m absolutely certain they’re still out there, but at least in my area in the sorts of groups I’m tuned into, they’ve become a minority.
Annecdotally, I used to have a pretty good track record for being able to sway people’s opinions on vaccines. I have a enough things going for me on both sides of the aisle that liberals and conservatives will both usually give me the benefit of the doubt and a bit of a reputation among people who know me for being fairly knowledgeable about a lot of things. Since the pandemic, that’s not really the case, everyone’s opinion is pretty much set in stone at this point. I have had a couple people I know thank me for straightening them out before COVID hit though so it’s nice to know my lessons stuck and who knows, maybe even saved a life or two.
I recall that time, too. Hippies jumped onboard with naturalism and spiritualism too far while conservatives only embraced these as a means to oppose big bad government conspiracies.
Overall those leftists have come around, fortunately.
When it comes to the pandemic, the propaganda being spread online was just insurmountable. My wife and I both work in a hospital and she has had to literally cart the corpses of covid’s victims to the morgue and then you get these supposed nurses who are probably L&D online thinking they have a grasp of what’s going on…
We’ve lost our grounding. Without it, there’s no orientation to truth and falsehood. Until we restore the notion of consensus of expertise, we are screwed on a variety of fronts.
Sadly enough, that problem will take care of itself eventually. Unfortunately it also means that people will suffer who had no say in this or may actually not be eligible for vaccinations.
I dunno, plenty of people continue to do pointlessly unhealthy things despite consequences.
Right, but that doesn’t consider the part where it’s about
people will suffer who had no say in this or may actually not be eligible for vaccinations.
It’s one thing to risk your own health/life, but an entirely different thing to risk others’ health/lives.
People also continue to endanger other’s health and lives despite consequences.
The only way this is fixed is if the government steps in. It won’t fix itself.
O’Leary points out that while vaccines have been used as political tools in recent years, most parents care more about what their medical provider says than any politician. Talking to parents at health visits about the importance of vaccines is important.
