Thread by @michaelmina_lab

🧵 I want to comment on what I was referring to👇

When we say “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, it is stigmatizing & inaccurate - this is a pandemic of a virus that is disproportionately afflicting unvaccinated

I urge us to consider root causes of why so many are unvaccinated

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https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1462453806676025350

I have spent many years speaking w vaccine hesitant ppl and not once have I found someone choosing to not vaccinate out of spite

It is nearly always out of a combination of love and fear and confusion about who to trust.

In this pandemic, we have lost the trust of many…

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The US has bungled the response to this virus in nearly every way pre-vax.

There have been many times when the public health decisions have had to be walked back. “We” have made many mistakes.

Yet we assume that everyone should auto-trust public health decisions

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The reality is ppl are just trying to get by in an ecosystem where knowing what policies are based on “true data” and what are not is a privilege.

Scientists and public health ppl often assume that the true data should be evident to all. But this is an incorrect assumption

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Many ppl in my own extended family are not vaccinated

This isn’t out of spite or negligence

It is out of confusion & concern about safety of vaccines and dangers of the virus. In many circles, the ppl that ppl trust most are saying things that conflict w “official” messages

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We can’t ignore the reality that we live in a world where “truth” is obscured by media, social pressures, social media, even the news and recent Presidents and current governors.

These are the issues that sit at the foundation of decisions to not get vaccinated.

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Ignoring these realities and stigmatizing unvaccinated allow us to miss the core problems we are grappling with in a politicized “post-truth” society.
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I hope we can develop nonstigmatizing approaches to help ppl understand the biology of vaccines, recognize we need to build back trust in public health, and learn to get ppl comfortable w putting a needle filled w an unknown-to-them substance into their loved ones arms

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Finally, this isn’t a comment on mandates. That is an entirely different question that requires a combination of ethics, infectious disease epidemiologists, immunologists, politics, lawyers, public input, and much more.

This is a comment on recognizing underlying causes.

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