Why Hatred of Anti-Vaxxers Scares Me More Than Covid

If you and I don’t stop the hate, who will?

When Biden was elected, I posted on Facebook my hope that the country would experience more unity. Maybe a global pandemic and a mild-mannered president would draw us closer together.

But a worrisome thought crossed my mind. Hatred against Trump, stirred to such intensity over the past four years, might find another outlet. Instead of dissipating, it might be redirected, because an emotion once ignited is hard to extinguish. If we didn’t have the Orange Man to blame, would we find somebody else?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It turns out my fears weren’t baseless. The hatred towards Trump, instead of vanishing, has been redirected toward anti-vaxxers. A steady drumbeat of hostility has people calling for harsh measures against the unvaccinated, such as limiting access to health care and other restrictions.

One social media influencer with tens of thousands of followers posted on Twitter: If you hate anti-vaxxers as much as I do, then please raise you hand!

She got a lot of responses from people who said things like, “Hatred is too mild a word! They are murderers!”

My response didn’t garner a lot of likes. I mentioned that her profile description said she valued kindness and loved animals, and maybe she shouldn’t succumb to hatred.

Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in this world, but has not solved one yet. — Maya Angelou

The reason hatred of anti-vaxxers disturbs me has nothing to do with my own vaccination status. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted. My vaccine passport is tucked in my wallet and I feel some reassurance that if I catch Covid, it will be mild.

So it’s not that I disagree with people who promote vaccination. My concern about hostility toward anti-vaxxers stems, instead, from the lessons of history. When citizens are pitted against each other, their countries are ripe for chaos and totalitarianism.

Turning People Against People

During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mao turned his own people against each other until family members denounced other family members as traitors. Children recruited to the Red Guard murdered their teachers and destroyed their parent’s homes, because teachers and parents suddenly belonged to an ostracized segment of society.

This technique has been used over and over again throughout history, with horrific results. The Nazis scapegoated the Jews, blaming them for every problem in Germany. Massive propaganda campaigns by Nazi-controlled media fueled a rising tide of hatred.

In the dystopian novel 1984, the government relied on informants to enforce its repressive regime. People were so distrustful of everyone around them that they even guarded their facial expressions, lest some unpatriotic thought be revealed in a frown or a smirk.

1984 is fiction, but government incentives encouraging people to turn against each other is a troubling trend in America. We see it in the Texas abortion law offering incentives for people to reveal the names of doctors who provide abortions and women who get them.

And we’ve seen it during the pandemic, with former Mayor Bill De Blasio urging New Yorkers to report anybody not social distancing.

“If we spot people who aren’t social distancing, even in a supermarket, we should immediately report it to the authorities, so we can get help there to fix the problem,” he said in a video.

Governments fan the flames of hostility when they encourage citizen spies, and they foster hatred when they single out one group to blame for society’s ills.

Follow the Science

Maybe blaming the unvaccinated seemed reasonable at one point when we knew less. We decided the unvaccinated weren’t cooperating for the common good and were causing hospitals to be overrun.

But the science is no longer there to support the blame game. Consider how much our understanding has morphed and evolved over the course of two years.

In the early days of the pandemic, when we were told it would take two weeks of lockdowns to flatten the curve, or that getting vaccinated meant we could ditch our masks and congregate again.

We’ve discovered since then that the vaccine’s effectiveness wanes steeply over time, that vaccinated people can get sick and spread the virus, and variants like Omicron can elude both natural immunity and vaccines.

I examined the data, and decided to get a booster shot because the preponderance of evidence indicates shots and boosters help us avoid hospitalization and death.

But somebody else weighing the evidence might come to a different conclusion.

A skeptic might question why countries such as South Africa, with some of the lowest vaccination rates, are faring better than countries with the highest vaccination rates.

Reasonable people might wonder why college campuses or cruise ships with almost 100 percent vaccination rates are having some of the largest Covid spikes. Cornell University partially shut down its Ithaca, N.Y. campus due to a Covid outbreak, despite having 97 percent of its population vaccinated.

Someone examining the CDC’s official VAERS (vaccine adverse event reporting system), might develop vaccine hesitancy because of the number of adverse reactions to vaccines, even though cause-effect relationships have not been established.

Even after reading VAERS reports, I opted for the vaccine based on scientific data.

I took into account that from December 2020 to December 2021, 470 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine were given safely in the United States.

I also based my decision on my own observations.

The majority of my friends have been vaccinated with no serious side effects, and none of them have developed a serious case of Covid-19 requiring hospitalization.

Yet two of my unvaccinated friends have died of Covid, and I’ve heard of several other Covid-related deaths among unvaccinated people in my immediate circles.

I decided, after considering evidence, statistics, and medical recommendations, that I would be better off getting vaccinated.

If We Don’t Stop the Hate, Who Will?

But can you see why the science isn’t there to justify sweeping condemnation of the unvaccinated? Throughout the pandemic, we’ve received different and sometimes conflicting information.

Remember when we were initially told not to wear masks? Or that getting vaccinated meant we wouldn’t catch the virus?

Just last week we were told to isolate 5 days instead of 10 after a positive Covid test.

We’re seeing both vaccinated and unvaccinated people get mildly ill with the Omicron variant, yet we’re told we will likely need a fourth shot.

Science and opinions are constantly shedding new light on our fluid understanding of this virus, and current science has shown us that blaming the unvaccinated isn’t logical. If anything, ongoing revelations should give us a little humility.

Admitting we’re sometimes wrong and being open to scientific updates that change our perspectives should bring us together and help us respect the decisions others make. But this doesn’t appear to be the way our government and media choose to operate. They seem intent of stirring resentment and placing blame.

Maybe it will be up to the people who aren’t in power to change the way we think. Unity might need to come from the bottom up, starting with us. Because if we don’t stop the hate, who will? And if no one does, I fear hatred more than I fear the virus.

“Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.” ― Siddhārtha Gautama, The Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha