Too many people seem to think that it is a lack of belief that is keeping people from getting vaccinated, and that some piece of evidence (full FDA approval) will convince them to get vaccinated.
Overall, it won’t.
This isn’t lack of trust. This isn’t fear. It’s stubbornness.
These people are so emotionally invested in being correct—in part because our society has reinforced for decades that changing your mind on something, even when there is new evidence, is somehow a bad thing.
To them, getting a vaccination means admitting they were wrong.
And if there’s one thing they can’t stand it’s the idea of being weak. And so they project their idea of strength (which come across as willful ignorance), which quickly becomes toxic as it is disconnected from all reality and fact, which only emboldens them further.
Indeed, Frances Oldham Kelsey was in charge of approving it by the FDA and refused until additional tests were conducted, despite pressure from the manufacturer.
Her concerns were justified as the birth defects were seen in Europe.
Indeed for her service President Kennedy gave her the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, and an annual award for FDA service is named in her honor.
I recently discovered that anti-vaxxers have been promoting a anti-parasite medication instead of the vaccine. Their reason for doing so is that it is “generic” and therefore there no ulterior motive at play, but that is a hilariously ignorant position to take.
Even generic medication has to be manufactured and only major metastudy that has endorsed the use of this medication is one that is explicitly trying to promote the use of this drug, and held said position before the study.
What’s more, the most high profile instances of promoting this idea in the US came from an op-Ed from a company that already manufactures the drug and would be ready to produce large amounts.
That’s… not accurate. First and foremost people who are vaccinated remain less likely to get infected with COVID-19, period, even with the Delta variant. When you’re less likely to get infected, you’re less likely to spread the virus inherently.
Additionally, the mutations we are seeing all emerged before widespread vaccination, so widespread vaccination is therefore unlikely to be the cause of these mutations. reuters.com/article/factch…
Additionally, a study out of Singapore suggests that even those who are vaccinated and get a breakthrough COVID-19 infection have a shorter period where they are contagious than those who are not vaccinated.
Refusing to get vaccinated isn’t just ignorant, it’s dangerous and selfish. It puts everyone at risk, especially teachers, nurses and the immunocompromised.
Those who spread misinformation about vaccines are not just harming their own followers, but society as a whole.
And the simple truth is that there is nothing that will change their minds at this point. They are too emotionally invested. We’ve made changing your mind be a sign of weakness, and I don’t know how we fix that.
People would emotionally rather risk death than be wrong.
It’s not everyone, mind you, but it is plenty of people. There’s no easy answers here—short of private companies requiring the vaccine not just to work for them but to enter their businesses. And that would require them to value their employees more than their bottom line.
And for the record: around 15% of high schoolers end up taking a calculus class. 15%. If you want an increased focus on STEM, then you probably want that number at least that high and you’ll also want to make sure more students are in classes for statistics.
But kids don’t need to learn how to balance a checkbook. They have real time monitoring of the checking account online. What they need is to understand interest rates and how credit works, but we don’t teach them that because there are massive forces who don’t want that education