Understanding that base fear will help bridge the divide between groups.
- Fear, hesitancy about potential long term risks.
- Resistance to government mandating a vaccine (freedom, low trust in government, other options not being considered)
- Resistance to the cultural paradigm of "un-vaccinated = bad/deplorable person"
- Belief that the risk of COVID is already low (at least for them)
It is literally a carrot/stick routine. Do what I want? Get a carrot. Don't do what I want? I'll beat you with the stick of public shaming.
This site is the only public forum I've seen reasoned debate on. Everywhere else and debate/dissent are actively shut down. Any information that conflicts with the seeming narrative is made to disappear.
For example, major hospital/health orgs that have stated in the past that masks don't slow viral spread have removed that data in the complete absence of randomized, controlled trials showing that masks actually work. In fact, meta studies have routinely shown that masks don't work to prevent viral spread [0].
[0]https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-e...
I posted in an /r/NFL thread saying that asking every single QB if they are vaccinated, and then frothing at the mouth when they decline to answer, is mostly nothing but a witch hunt.
I received a permanent ban with the message from the mod "anti-vaxx moron". I'm not anti-vaxx, and I'm not a moron, but this is generally concerning behavior about the state of discussion surrounding Covid and the censorship taking place online. You aren't allowed to have an opinion that isn't "Vaxx up and mask up and harass anyone who doesn't".
You can verify that they and a few other websites changed the definition by checking archive.org
I'm not sure I'd feel more comfortable with the mRNA stuff being called something different, though.
I'm low risk, I wear a.mask everywhere, always, I rarely leave the house, my "city" has less than 500 people in it, and I have disinfectant and UV lights for deliveries. I go out in the very early morning or very late night, once a month to go shopping. I "work from home". My wife cannot be vaccinated at this time, either. Just a couple more data points.
People are bad at optimizing for low and long term risks, but doing something knowing it's bad for you is different than being anxious about what unknown effects a treatment might have.
By the time group 2 catches up (because years have gone by of the vaccine not causing widespread problems) the threat is gone. Meanwhile the animosity has not truly been diminished because the first group will feel the second is responsible for insert issue pertaining to millions of people willingly not getting vaccinated that caused them pain/suffering.
It's almost like many people are "worried" about "long term effects" as just a smoke-screen to run out the clock on the issue...
A recent study (last week) came out showing after three months it starts wearing and you need to get another vaccine. You will have different people at various levels of vaccines shots (1 to 3 and by Jan you could need a fourth). What being vaccinated means based on the number of shots and where you are in the wearoff cycle makes the vac vs unvac divided not based on reality. If you had one shot got a side effect and decided not to get the next shot where does that person fit?
The two groups(Those opposed to vaccination due to potential long term effects and those in favor of vaccination immediately) cannot come to a meeting of the minds. Both sides see a potential existential threat that they're prioritizing that makes them diametrically opposed to the other point of view ("if you don't get the vaccine today you're actively spreading the plague" vs "if I get the shot, my blood will clot and I'll be sterile"). The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The whole issue with vaccination is that of threat perception. Everyone is building hypothetical models for the future based, mostly, on personal feeling and enough data points from experts to justify that feeling.
Again: There are a number of people who feel that the threat of the virus is less than the threat of the vaccine and are thus using whatever means presently available to them to justify to others why they believe that, just as there are people who feel that the virus is a greater threat than the cure.
When it comes to the vaccine, I got the first shot (Moderna) and had such a terrible week following it that my doctor was fairly convinced I probably already had COVID. Everyone I know had a much stronger reaction to the second shot than to the first, so I've opted to remain partially vaccinated.
With Delta in full swing, I'm now reconsidering that, but am making arrangements in advance to be out of work for another week or two, as that's my expectation going in.
All of that said, the folks I know who are unvaccinated have either already had COVID, so they're just trusting their immune system, or they are in a relatively low-risk group, and are concerned about long-term vaccine side-effects. All of them are fully vaccinated in all other regards, just not with COVID. Make of that what you will, but very few of them fall into the caricatures I see bandied about in the comments here.
Incidentally, I'm also concerned about long-term side effects, but I figure at this point, we'll have to solve that problem as a society, if they ever show up enmasse.
Counter-anecdata: everyone I know (in the UK[1]) had a much milder reaction to the second than the first - first one knocked most people out for a day or two; second one was half a day in the worst cases, couple of hours in the main.
[1] Which means AZ or J&J, I think, not Moderna. But it's anecdata, it's never going to be 100% helpful.
