This is something that makes zero sense to me. Please tell me if I’m living in a bubble. I read a column about football players claiming they aren’t getting vaccinated due to “pressure from family and friends.” Then I read that NFL QB Carson Wentz is claiming he isn’t vaccinated because of his family.
As an adult human being (just like all NFL players), first I tried to imagine why the opinions of my friends would matter. Even if they are anti-vaxxers I couldn’t imagine anyone holding that much influence over my personal medical decisions.
Second, I’m trying to figure out how you could harm your family by being vaccinated. Anybody?
When I posted these thoughts on an NFL message board I got 100% negative reaction. I don’t know if most NFL football fans are not independent adults or all their relatives have some rare disease that will kill them if they come in contact with a vaccinated person or what.
Has anybody been pressured by family and friends to remain unvaccinated? Did it work? I just can’t imagine.
Some sections of the anti-vax crowd claim that the vaccine will make you a plague carrier and that the vaxed are the cause of the current wave. It’s wrong and stupid, but that is one possible source for family pressure.
A lot of adults aren’t very independent. I keep hearing about people who want to get vaccinated, but feel the need to tell their anti-vaxxer significant other or parent(s), who then try to convince them not to get vaccinated. They were scared by stories spread by anti-vaxxers, and turned to someone they trusted. (Since in the 21st Century, trust > science, even if the trust is in untrustworthy people.)
In a lot of cases these anti-vaxxers are “genuinely concerned” (as in they have genuine feelings, but know nothing about virology). My mother is a hypochondriac and is always giving me unsolicited health advice, so I’ve learned to ignore her. She was born in a country with a poor education system, isn’t computer literate, is religious, falls for scams all the time, and wants me to read things for her (I’m seriously wondering if her poor vision is an excuse; I bought her glasses but she refuses to wear them). When she told me not to get vaccinated, I tried to convince her to get vaccinated. (Stalemate.)
I have an in-law who works at Focus on the Family (a deep dark secret of mine). I . . . hate everything about that hypocritical organization, and their response on COVID has been … unbalanced. While they said they supported COVID vaccine use on a ‘personal choice’ level, they were against any that used fetal cells in development (including J&J). Apparently though, taking a personal choice to use any vaccine was seen as a ‘failure of faith’ by many of the staff - you should trust to God about such things after all.
So yeah, I can see friend / co-worker pressure not to vaccinate to be a thing, especially in religious or religious affiliated groups. Similarly with any other work/social group that has been heavily tied into RW news cycle.
My mother had a brief phase of being anti-vaccine (she still thinks Moderna turns you into a human magnet) but she was willing to get Pfizer, and our whole family got Pfizer.
Hell, one of my doctors is anti-vax. And his staff seems to follow him in this belief. He tried to explain he has “reservations” about the vaccines and their rush to market, and encouraged me to think hard about it before getting mine. I’m not qualified to “research” this subject beyond reading what I can find, but to me the vaccines are a fucking miracle, and I’ve gotten mine (and will be first in line for the boosters, should they be recommended).
I’ve lost a lot of relatives in the past 2 years, several to Covid and others to despair (that I suspect is related to this shitshow). The parts of the family which I tolerate contact with are all vaxxed, I’m not sure about the branches I jettisoned years ago. There might still be holdouts there, but since I refuse contact there’s no chance of pressure from that direction.
My wife met an old friend for lunch recently, the first time since social distancing. She told me the old friend immediately told her she needed to pick which side she was on, because freind was only associating with those resisting the government takeover of our [something, something, 5G, Bill Gates, something]. When she told me this, I asked if she’d mentioned precious bodily fluids. At least we got a laugh out of it.
I’m just done with this shit, and am weary beyond description. My path to a hermit lifestyle is becoming clearer by the day.
No. My social circles are very pro-vax. The closest anti-vaxxer in the family is my daughter-in-law’s uncle, and his wife got vaccinated.
I feel bad for people whose families are anti-vax. Most people don’t read medical journals for fun, and get a lot of their information about the world from their family and friends.
Wow! That is one of the most influential people there is in this fight against Covid and he is discouraging people from getting it? I would’ve walked the fuck out of that quack’s office and never returned.
A cousin of mine posted so much anti-vax crap on FB I unfriended him. This past summer his grand daughter was due to deliver his first great grandson. He was informed by his grand daughter, get the vaccine or don’t plan on seeing your great grandson. His grand daughter posted a picture a few days ago of my cousin holding is new great grandson with the caption “Fully vaccinated, proud of Grandpa”.
Ditto. I wouldn’t trust someone who doesn’t understand the testing procedure for the vaccines to prescribe me a Tylenol.
No problem for me and my family, but my wife is an expert.
When my first grandson was born both sets of grandparents and the father was in the room when a nurse came in asking if he could get one of the early vaccinations. Six immediate “yesses” could be heard.
I have a friend who works in a hospital that decided to mandate vaccinations, of course all hell broke loose. The whole place went tribal over it and she had to pick a side. She isn’t anti vaxx or anything but she does have MS so she was stressed about the shot for other reasons. Not wanting to tell her coworkers why she was hesitant made it complicated. Having people you’ve been friends with for years screaming at you about how dangerous it is wasn’t helpful. She did end up getting it and it hit her pretty hard but she’s okay. Sadly, she has a few less friends at work then she used to.
I have an aunt who’s not a Trumper by any stretch, but she’s into homeopathy and other woo. Her kids got all their shots, but she has expressed hesitation over how many they get at once, which I’ve since come to recognize as a gateway drug to anti-vaxxerism. When my mom told her I had signed up for the Moderna trial, she wrote to me and encouraged me to reconsider, explaining that she had recently discovered she had a gene that made her more susceptible to toxins and I might have it too. I held out hope she would come around, but she never did, and remains unvaccinated herself.
I do think getting vaccinated is a left-leaning, Democratic voting, blue thing to do. The right has practically come down on the side of the virus, and against Covid vaccination even while largely accepting vaccination for other diseases. It’s beyond my imagination to understand why they chose to do this, but if there’s an opposing side that decides it’s at war with what I’m doing, then doing it puts me on my side of a war, whether I thought it should have been a war or not.
Understand, it’s not that I think we moved vaccination into the political realm, it’s that I think the right moved the dark cloud of politics to cover vaccination.
I would’ve walked the fuck out of that quack’s office and never returned.