He was kicked out of Facebook and banned from Twitter, but Larry Cook leads a fight at StopMandatoryVaccination.com, where the Los Angeles man tries to explain why COVID-19 vaccinations are bad and why President Donald Trump – who he insists on, will return to power – got one anyway.
Some evangelical Christians bind the vaccines to Satan, the mark of the beast, and an impending apocalypse.
And in the sunny Surf City, Pro Tem Tito Ortiz, mayor of Huntington Beach, refuses to wear a mask and defiantly states, “I’m not taking the vaccine – hell no!”
While tens of millions of people are in a hurry to get the pandemic vaccinated and disappear, the hesitation is declining in the communities hardest hit. In a recent poll by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, it was found that 55% of black adults said they had been vaccinated or planned to be vaccinated soon, up 14 percentage points from February. Sixty-one percent of Latinos and 64% of Whites said the same.
“It’s one thing to say that you do not want a vaccine if it’s only four weeks out, and that you can not get it anyway,” said Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and demographer at UC Irvine , which studies infectious diseases, said. “It’s different when we have six months’ data, and you see that people’s toes don’t fall off after they get the shots.”
Nevertheless, 13% of respondents said they would refuse vaccination anyway. Republicans and white evangelical Christians are most likely to avoid shots, and nearly 30% of each group said they would “definitely not” be vaccinated.
Disturbing stratification
Public health experts have never seen such political stratification over a health crisis and find it deeply worrying. This intransigence could pose a threat by allowing the virus to continue to circulate – and mutate – into more virulent forms that could put everyone at risk, they said.
“The extent to which this particular vaccine, this particular disease, is perceived very differently depending on what political party you belong to – it is, to my knowledge, unprecedented and deplorable,” said Arthur L. Reingold, president of California Vaccine Safety. . judging panel and head of epidemiology and biostatistics at UC Berkeley.
‘The vaccines are safe and effective and the benefits outweigh any risks. This is going to make it difficult to reach the level of vaccination and immunity in many communities that we would like in public health. ”
If 80 to 85% of the population needs to be vaccinated or infected to achieve ‘herd immunity’ – where the virus sparks mainly from the lack of fresh hosts – the vaccine skeptics could contribute to a real problem.
“If you think back to last summer, it was the Republicans who were all excited about the vaccine and the Democrats who were all worried about it,” said Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “We should never allow public health to become a political issue, but letting these commitments turn around suggests that it is not so ingrained.”
Attempts to reach skeptics are perhaps too late, with a $ 24 million ad buying with powerful spots from the Ad Council depicting a grandmother’s first visit with her grandchildren and triumphant scenes of sporting events. ‘The COVID-19 vaccines are here. … It depends on you, ”says the labels at the end of the spots.
Social media sites are downloading anti-vaccine evangelists from their platforms – on Facebook, a search for Cook’s StopMandatoryVaccination page lists reliable sources on vaccination information, as well as ‘Stop Compulsory Vaccination by Larry Cook’ a #FakeNews website ‘, prominent anti-wax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been banned by Instagram and other platforms for trading in fake information.
But strange ideas are still spreading. The vaccines insert a slide into your body so that the government can track your every move. They make you infertile. It changes your DNA. They give you COVID.
Some prominent evangelical leaders have been preaching the virtues of vaccines for months in an effort to counteract ridiculous misconceptions, such as “Jesus did not want to allow the virus to hurt those within a church.”
God showed much of his will when he gave you the brain. And he expects you to use it, ”said Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, in a training session for religious leaders on how to approach COVID-19 with their flocks.
Hardcore ‘anti-waxxers’, as they are called, are actually a tiny little community that looks bigger because of all the publicity it attracts and its skillful manipulation on social media, said John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus in the Division of Infectious Diseases said & Vaccination at UC Berkeley. For these people, there is nothing that anyone can say or do to change their mind.
But many hesitant people – a much larger group than the anti-vaxxers – have good reason to be hesitant, he said. Some are simply waiting for more information on efficacy and risks. Others have a history of abuse and neglect by the health care system. Some have heard rumors about chips and infertility, and others have mistrusted Big Pharma.
“I think this is the group we really need to bring together,” Swartzberg said. “Without those who are reluctant to be vaccinated, it will be difficult to get enough people to immunize to achieve a prevalence of herd immunity.”
Stanford’s Schulman sees the rollout of vaccines as a product launch, just as Apple is launching a new iPhone.
“Apple will be thinking about delivering its message for a year, and if 30% of people buy an iPhone, they’ll be excited,” he said. “This is the most important product launch of our lifetime – and we need to reach 85% of the market share, not 30. It is really important for us to respond to this. ”
Overcome mistrust
Ken Williams is an osteopath and longtime member of the Orange County Board of Education, which sued the state last year for allowing ‘in-the-seat’ learning on campuses. As a physician, he was one of the first to offer the vaccine and was happy to fill out the paperwork – until he came across a box in which he said he gave permission to share his information with the state.
He does not mark the box. So he did not get the chance.
Since then, Williams has signed up for the Orange County’s vaccination app, Othena, and has received both shots. Othena did not have that box, he said.
“Reluctance goes back to a mistrust in the government,” he said. “I do not think it matters who is in government. On January 6, we had the Capitol tragedy, which was terrible. Then we have had political divisions over the past few months, while the Biden government has seen the pandemic as an excellent opportunity to restore society. ”
The deterioration of the GP and the rise of corporate medicine did not help, he said. ‘The primary care physician has been set aside and you do not know who the hell is giving you the injections at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart. Patients no longer go to the doctors they trust for these services. ”
The Kaiser Family Foundation found that about half of those in the ‘wait-and-see’ group said they would be more likely to be vaccinated if the jab was offered during a regular medical appointment.
Williams is trying to send his patients to vaccination. He tells them that they have the right to procrastinate – but they must weigh the consequences, including infection, permanent injury and death. Or they can take the vaccine and get the benefits of immunity.
Go viral
Saddleback Pastor Warren and his wife, Kay, did just that in January. But after Kay Warren tweeted that they had received their COVID-19 vaccines, she was overwhelmed by hundreds of bad attacks.
Rick Warren, at the helm of the mega-church, preached that wearing masks and being vaccinated are ways to love your neighbor as you love yourself. In an online seminar with Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, the men said that Christ will call us to be healers and do everything possible to preserve life. Warren has written a rap song about COVID for children, and a website that discusses the questions of evangelists is at www.christiansandthevaccine.com.
According to experts, the help is to call in people like Warren and Williams.
Schulman and co-author Stacy Wood published “Beyond Politics – Promoting Covid-19 Vaccination in the United States” in the New England Journal of Medicine in February. It contains 12 strategies for overcoming hesitation – including: “Find a common enemy.” It would be the virus, not each other.
Kaiser found that the most compelling information for skeptics to share was that the vaccines are almost 100% effective in preventing hospitalization and death, that scientists have been working on the technology used in the new vaccines for 20 years and that they are free. .
Skeptics are likely to become more willing if vaccination is required to travel or go to work. But it is important to be realistic: ‘We are not going to consume 100%. We do not get it for any vaccine, ”said UC Riverside’s Carpiano.
It is understandable that people are hesitant, said Swartzberg of Berkeley. “It’s new and something’s being put into your body and it feels scary, ‘he said. ‘But if we see tens of millions of people being vaccinated and not dying or hospitalized with COVID, that’s going to be a very powerful message. I’m optimistic. ”