I know I’ve been giving those who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine a hard time in recent months. I won’t apologize for that because I don’t regret that in the slightest.
I’ll say it again. These people are being assholes. They’re the reason why this pandemic is still raging. They’re also the reason there’s a new variant that’s causing cases to spike in various parts of the country. I’m sorry, but I can only be so understanding when people are being assholes to a point that gets other people killed.
However, rather than bemoan these people for their dumb decisions and dumber politics, I thought I’d share something I found on Reddit that perfectly illustrates why the anti-vaxx crowd are so infuriating. It’s funny and it’s dumb, but it’s also painfully relevant.
In general, I try to be a compassionate, understanding person. That’s how my parents raised me. That’s how most decent human beings are brought up in this world. It’s how we, as a species, learn to cooperate, co-exist, and work together to survive and thrive. It’s a beautiful thing, indeed.
However, it has limits.
Lately, the anti-vaxx crowd who refuse to get the COVID-19 vaccine are really testing it.
I’ve gone on my shareof rants about the anti-vaxx crowd whose idiocy is bound to get people killed. With each passing day, those who resist or protest the vaccines become less and less sympathetic. We’re getting to a point where there’s no real excuse for concern or hesitation.
Not getting this vaccine to end this deadly plague is no longer a product of politics or protest. It’s just people being assholes.
With all that in mind, I’m honestly not sure how to feel about vocal anti-vaxx people who get seriously sick with COVID-19. These stories are becoming increasingly common. A few have even died because they refused to get the vaccine. Reckless behavior aside, they’re human beings. Their lives mattered and their death will be felt by family and loved ones.
At the same time, these people were fucking idiots. This is not a mild case of Chicken Pox. COVID-19 is a deadly pandemic. Before the vaccines came along, it was killing people by the thousands. It didn’t care about borders, ethnicity, political affiliation, or religion. People were suffering and dying. We all had to drastically change our lives just to contain it.
Then, a vaccine comes along and it works. It works incredibly well and promises to end this pandemic once and for all. We can have our lives back and save countless more.
Somehow, that’s not enough for these people. They still refuse to subject themselves to a simple shot, which could save their lives and the lives of those around them. We have the cure, but they refuse to take it.
How can we have sympathy for that?
Moreover, how can we be compassionate when these same people get horribly sick?
I honestly don’t have an answer. It’s an open question that I find myself struggling with each passing day. I tend to have a lot of faith in humanity. Even for people I despise, I try to be understanding and compassionate.
This time, however, I have a hard time mustering much sympathy. These people lived through the same horrors we all did. They saw all the death and suffering that this virus was causing. Then, when a vaccine comes along to stop all that, they choose not to take it.
At that point, they’re not victims anymore. They’re responsible for this state. They willingly jumped off a cliff without a parachute because they didn’t trust the parachute. I can sympathize with a lot of things, but I can’t sympathize with this.
Maybe I’ll feel differently as things play out. For now, I just don’t know.
I’ll pose this question to anyone who reads this. How much sympathy should we have for these people at this stage of the pandemic? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Also, and I know this might be a futile effort, please get vaccinated.
Last week, I got my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. It was a smooth, pleasant experience by every measure. Those involved were kind, professional, and diligent. My arm was a bit sore for a while, but other than that, I felt no major side-effects.
Having covered the development of this vaccine, I cannot overstate what a monumental achievement this is for science, health, and the general improvement of human well-being. Those involved in the development of this vaccine are real-life heroes. It’s because of them that this terrible pandemic will never claim as many lives as it could’ve.
However, there are still those who are reluctant to take the vaccine. Some do it for religious reasons. Some do it for political reasons. Whatever their reason is, I won’t mince words. It’s stupid, selfish, and is putting other people at risk. This pandemic will drag on longer and kill more people because of them. They should be criticized for that.
Some of those people cannot be reasoned with and are just a lost cause. For others, though, who may be nervous or reluctant to take this vaccine, I feel we should reach out to those people. I’m sure they’ve heard plenty of conflicting messages as well about the vaccine. There are real answers to those concerns and I’d like to share them.
Below is a video from the YouTube channel, asapSCIENCE. They’re a good YouTube channel with millions of subscribers and great production values. They have a talent for breaking down major science-related issues in a simple, easy-to-follow manner. I sincerely hope this video allays any concerns you might have about getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
In general, I am very against censorship. I’m a strong advocate of ending the outdated and asinine practice of bleeping profanity and blurring female nipples. There is no reasonable justification for that kind of censorship. It’s just a dumb, misguided effort to try and cover up certain words and images that some people find offensive. That kind of censorship has no place in a free society.
In that same spirit, I am also very much in favor of fact-checking. I’ve been on the internet long enough to know the near-infinite volumes of bullshit that fill websites, social media, and even blogs like mine. In fact, given the recent trends in politics and a preference for “alternative facts,” I think fact-checking has never been more critical.
For that very reason, it’s important to make clear that fact-checking is not the same as censorship. Verifying whether some bullshit claim about chemtrails or shape-shifting lizards is valid does not constitute censorship. It’s consistent with a sincere and honest effort to filter bullshit from meaningful facts.
I bring this up because certain groups and movements are having a difficult time discerning between the two. More recently, anti-vaxx groups on social media sites like FaceBook have been whining about censorship of their extreme, unsubstantiated views. ARS Technica recently reported that this whining has escalated into a full-fledged lawsuit.
A notorious anti-vaccine group spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed suit today in federal court in California alleging that Facebook’s fact-checking program for false scientific or medical misinformation violates its constitutional rights.
Children’s Health Defense claims in its suit that Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the organizations Science Feedback, Poynter, and PolitiFact acted “jointly or in concert with federal government agencies” to infringe on CHD’s First and Fifth Amendment rights. The suit also alleges Facebook and the fact-checking organizations colluded to commit wire fraud by “clearing the field” of anti-vaccine ads.
As anti-vax movement gets weirder—and dumber—Facebook announces crackdown
Facebook has “insidious conflicts with the pharmaceutical industry and its captive health agencies,” CHD claimed in a press release. “Facebook currently censors Children’s Health Defense’s page, targeting its purge against factual information about vaccines, 5G and public health agencies.”
“This is an important First Amendment case testing the boundaries of government authority to openly censor unwanted critiques of government policies and pharmaceutical and telecom products on privately owned internet platforms,” Kennedy added in a written statement.
Now, I’m not a lawyer and I have no legal expertise on the nature of censorship and free speech in the internet age. However, I’m smart enough and sane enough to understand the difference between actively censoring ideas that I don’t want to hear and trying to verify a ridiculous claim shared on social media.
I’m also informed enough to understand that FaceBook isn’t the government, even though it tries to be at times. It’s a platform. It can decide for itself whether or not it wants to remove certain content. Every private organization does that to some extent, especially ones with such a vast reach.
The content they permit has a tangible effect on their brand image. It’s why FaceBook’s reputation is not on the same level as 4chan, even if that’s not saying much. Their efforts to verify or discredit claims on their platform is perfectly in line with standard practices. It doesn’t actively punish or fine anti-vaxxers like the government did when Janet Jackson’s nipple popped out during the Super Bowl. It just removes or flags the content.
You can call that a lot of things. You may not like that companies like FaceBook can decide what is and isn’t appropriate on a platform that has had such a spotty history with censorship, to say the least. In this case though, it’s not censorship.
If anything, fact checking medical claims during a global pandemic is probably the most responsible thing a company like FaceBook can do. Hosting those claims can potentially do a great deal of harm to those who don’t know the difference between clickbait and a legitimate news story. People could actually suffer and die.
When feelings and sensibilities are the only thing at stake, then it’s fine to talk about the merits of censoring content. However, when lives are at stake on a large scale, there is no merit. Claims that may or may not affect those lives should be fact-checked. You can complain about it all you want in a lawsuit, but unless you can verify your bullshit, then that’s exactly how it’s going to be labeled and that’s not FaceBook’s fault.
I bring this up because, like so many others who have been stuck at home for months on end, my ears perk up every time I hear news about a potential vaccine for COVID-19. There’s a good reason for that. Every legitimate doctor, who doesn’t have a TV show or infomercial, says the same thing. The best and quickest way to end any pandemic is with a vaccine.
That’s not news for most people. If you passed high school biology, you know what a vaccine is and why it works. However, in the years leading up to this pandemic, there was a concerted movement against vaccines, especially for young children. It was called the anti-vaxx movement and, like many social movements relating to science, it was driven by misguided goals and faulty data.
I won’t get into the history of the movement. John Oliver already did a very comprehensive breakdown on the issue back in 2017, long before the pandemic. Here’s the video in case you need a refresher.
Even if you don’t support all the points Mr. Oliver made, I do have a message for those still skeptical of vaccines. Whether you were anti-vaccine before the pandemic or have just come to distrust modern medicine in general, I have one critical question to ask.
What’s your alternative for ending this pandemic?
It’s a legitimate question. Nearly every doctor agrees. Vaccines work. A vaccine is what will end this pandemic. If all those doctors are wrong and your side is right, then this is the best possible time to prove it.
You, whether you identify as an anti-vaxxer or are just skeptical of western medicine, have a chance to both show up the entire medical establishment and save thousands of lives. People are dying. Economies are faltering. Societies are frozen in place. The medical establishment, no matter what you think of them, are working on a solution. Where’s yours?
Now, I’m not saying the medical establishment is staffed by angels. There are many shady dealings in the modern medical industry, especially among pharmaceutical companies. Corrupt her not, however greedy their motivations might be, they’re still doing the work. They’re researching, developing, and testing potential treatments for this deadly disease.
There’s still time for the movement to do the same. If there’s any legitimacy to the anti-vaxxer’s stance, this would be their chance to demonstrate it. If anyone in this crowd, be it some renegade doctor or Jenny McCarthy, can come up with a better treatment, then they won’t just be a hero for saving so many lives. They’ll have proven their point beyond any reasonable doubt.
The time to make that statement is now. At some point, they’re going to find a treatment. It probably won’t be this year, but with lives, money, and prestige at stake, someone is going to succeed. Then, as the pandemic subsides and cases decline, what will the anti-vaxxer crowd have to say?
They’ll watch with the rest of the world as a vaccine ended a pandemic. On top of that, they’ll have sat around and done absolutely nothing to have developed another treatment. They had a chance to both save lives and show up the medical establishment, but failed. What does that say about the movement and its credibility?
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