Just to add personal experience here, my anti-vax, hoaxer husband was seriously sick for three weeks and has been slowing recovering over the last week. The only reason he believes he has COVID is because he keeps testing positive. Yesterday, when I verbally wondered if he was going to need to get the first vaccination before getting a booster in the fall, he was very clear that he was now immune to all COVID and all variants for life and would not be getting any shots.
We are not going to counter this sort of thinking, we just have to allow for it and plan for it.
Really, really this. I had two anti-vaxx friends. The idea that a calm, logical approach that takes into account their anxieties will work is nice but ineffective. For people who are merely vaccine-hesitant, that approach may work, at least sometimes. But true anti-vaxxers are conspiracy theorists. They believe:
“Big Pharma” is evil.
Any scientific study that supports “Big Pharma” was paid for by Big Pharma. A university study? That university must receive funding from BP, probably under the table.
Any doctor who says vaccines are safe is getting money from BP.
Anyone else who says vaccines are safe is either getting money or is duped.
You can argue until the antibiotic-free, organically-fed cows come home that COVID-19 vaccines are safe. You can explain the science, cite the sources, parse it up and parse it down. You will never convince them. They have bought into a world view that fits their life experiences and prejudiced understanding, and it has become part of their identity.
Better to focus on trying to anti-vaxx-proof those who are vulnerable to this way of thinking.
Indeed! And the worse part is that except for that, he’s a great guy. He’s excited about our new kitten, has agreed that he won’t go out and about until after he has a negative test and has ordered more beer ingredients from a more expensive local place instead of the cheaper online place.
That’s why I keep referring to his condition as some sort of stroke or brain damage.
Thank you. I have been singing this song for so long that I feel like Cassandra.
COVID is going to always be here because of Covidiots like hubs. And over half of the people in Arizona. If Biden were to pass a bill that allowed vaccinated folks to dart unvaccinated ones, I would so be on board. Alas, that will not happen, so we have to remember that at least 49% of the population is under average intelligence and adjust accordingly.
If we’re now talking about anti-vaxxers and not simply people who are hesitant or concerned or misinformed, my opinion is that the best path to vaccination is through a mandate.
Not picking on you @JaneDoe42 or your husband, but this is an interesting comment:
Just today I was reading an article in the (paywalled) professional press about how they are now seeing lots of people catching COVID who had it year or more ago. Natural immunity acquired via an infection appears to be pretty short-lived.
And may be highly variant-specific to boot. Given that there are over 1000 cataloged variants worldwide, and more springing up every day, folks who think like your hubs would seem to be signing up to catch COVID over and over and over.
One wonders just how many recurrences it will take for his attitude to shift. One hopes it won’t take a hospitalization or ICU stay.
It’d be interesting to know how many of these “lots” of people catching it again now were allegedly asymptomatic positives when they had it before last summer given how terrible the early tests were with both false positives and false negatives.
Or "I felt horrible last December/January/February/March/April - I had covid. The number of friends I have that are SURE they had covid before testing was widely available is over 50% (they are all vaccinated, and all worry, and all want to police other peoples post-vaccine mask wearing because they can’t tell if you’ve been vaccinated or not - I think of them as the “chicken little” set. Everything is the worst possible interpretation - but on the pro-Science side. Thus a late Spring cold in 2020 = covid)
Welp. I mentioned in another thread that I have an aunt who had expressed hesitancy to get the vaccine. I was hoping that a little more time (during which many people she knew would get the vaccine and be fine) would help her get over that hesitancy. She’s not generally anti-vax, though she has questioned the wisdom of giving so many at once (a concern not validated by an enormous body of research on the subject, but still, not that big a deal if you want to stretch out your kid’s shots a little, especially if you’re willing and able to keep them home in the meantime.) She’s been taking the pandemic seriously, staying home as much as possible and masking up when out, so it’s not like she thinks it’s all a hoax.
But. She is flying down to visit my parents next month, and she has just informed us that she does not intend to get vaccinated. Her justification is that she’s “healthy.” Bitch, please. She’s in her late 60s, overweight, and allegedly so sensitive to toxins that she told me she can’t visit my home for at least a year now that I’ve sprayed it for termites. She’s not being a bully about it; she did ask my parents if they’d still be comfortable hosting her under the circumstances. But I am very disappointed. I gave the matter some thought (she sent the email to me as well as my parents, directing the “are you comfortable” question to all of us), and at the risk of causing conflict decided to say my piece. I responded that I was not concerned about the risk to myself, but that I hoped she would change her mind, that every person who chose not to get vaccinated puts others at risk, and that I believe getting vaccinated is the right thing to do.
My dad (her brother) had already responded, saying he wasn’t concerned for himself, but he was concerned for her, and giving some cites about the infection rates among the unvaccinated being as high now as they were at the peak in January. But I don’t think he has much influence on her. My mom just said she’s comfortable with the visit. My husband, the only other person on the email, is wisely declining to touch that whole mess with a ten-foot pole.
I have a dive buddy who has never taken the pandemic very seriously. We hadn’t dived together in a year, but then his wife talked him into getting the vaccine by convincing him that airlines and concert venues would start making things difficult for the unvaccinated. So he decided to get this pointless hurdle over with. I’ll take it.
I’d take that in a heartbeat. My sister said she backed away from getting vaccinated because she heard “NY State is making businesses require proof of vaccination to reopen at full capacity”. A “you can’t tell me what to do” reaction.
