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There is an old adage, sometimes attributed to Neil deGrasse Tyson, that “ignorance is a virus”. He appeared on a protest board in Los Angeles last month when a man sought to counter vaccine protesters. Its sign read “Your ignorance is a virus. Get vaccinated!”
I noticed the same sentiment on Twitter Monday afternoon, posted by former CNNer David Clinch, in reply to a story causing rabies on people who are unwilling to get a free Covid-19 vaccine, but shell out money for fake vaccine cards. “Ignorance is a virus”, Clinch wrote.
Incomprehensible conspiracy theories, illogical memes, misconceptions – they all spread face-to-face and text-to-text in very personal ways, and through evil viral platforms that spread nonsense from country to country in a few minutes. And we are all seeing this spread in near real time due to the latest wave of Covid-19 in parts of the United States. “Arkansas only has 8 intensive care beds available,” “Two Texas ERs Temporarily Closed Due to Covid” and “DeSantis Steps Up War on Masks in Schools” are three of the headlines on CNN.com right now.
The unvaccinated bear the brunt of pain and suffering. Disputes between vaccinated and unvaccinated adults increasingly feel like a death match, since it is really about life and death. Reporters operate in the space between these two Americas and try to explain side to side by interviewing vaccine opponents and health officials trying to help them. It can be an excruciating read at times, but it’s also incredibly informative …
“We failed”
I’ve noticed that almost every frontline story cites America’s information crisis and depressing levels of social trust:
– Baton Rouge, Louisiana: “Somehow we failed in our message,” Dr. Frank Courmier told Megan Wyatt of The Acadiana Advocate as her hospital filled with critically ill patients. “There seems to be a war for the truth,” he said. “And I think there’s a strong determination, for me at least, that the truth will prevail, no matter how dark it looks right now.”
– Long Island, New York: A 65-year-old man told Newsday’s David Olson: “I don’t trust the government. Are you kidding me? What they did to Trump.” His wife, who is equally resistant to the vaccine, said that “one of our relatives told us that they put aborted fetuses in the vaccine.” (False.) Olson also quoted a 71-year-old man who said he “didn’t know what to believe” but “reads and listens to the news about people who have been vaccinated and still receive the vaccine. COVID. Me, it really doesn’t matter much. “
– San Antonio, Texas: The Express-News interviewed Victor Velos, “a retired West Side pulmonologist,” who “struggles to convince his two youngest sons, in their mid-twenties, to get vaccinated. The brothers inquire about vaccines. from 4chan, an online forum that allows users to remain anonymous and where vaccine lies have spread. “
– Tulare County, California: Fresno Bee’s story of a “vaccination desert” in California’s Central Valley opened with a 29-year-old farm worker who “knows many people, including his girlfriend, who have fallen ill from the virus. And in the last month alone, two of his friends have died of complications from the disease. Yet he has not made immunization a priority, in part because of misinformation about him. read online.
– Hyattsville, Maryland: Mike Brown, owner of The Shop Spa, told CNN’s Nicquel Terry Ellis that “we have tried to provide the correct information to the community because they are swimming in pools of disinformation and buying it. I am enlightening them. so on the facts and making sure they get the correct information that can fight their conspiracy theories. “
– Boston, Massachusetts: “The disinformation coming from Haiti, which has the lowest rate of vaccination against Covid-19 of any country in the world,” has a particular impact on the district of Mattapan, “which has the largest Haitian community in the world. ‘State’, and the lowest vax in Boston, reports Tori Bedford for GBH.
– Far Rockaway, New York: In a neighborhood with low immunization rates, community organizer Jazmine Outlaw said “lack of information is the reason people miss things.” In addition, she told Politico’s Téa Kvetenadze, people “don’t trust a lot of information that gets out.”
– Heflin, Alabama: Ryan Jackson, a pharmacist, told the LA Times he’s heard all the conspiracy theories. But it’s even deeper than that: “They don’t trust the government, a lot of political factors. It’s just total distrust of anyone in authority.” But he is somewhat hopeful that “more people will come” as the unvaccinated see that the vaccinated “don’t grow extra limbs and third eyeballs.”
“I made that up. It is. Not. Real.”
New York Times reporter Nicole Hong’s story of “One Company’s Struggle to Get All Employees Immunized” has a longer lifespan than Hong might have expected.
It is because of this paragraph about a reluctant Metro Optics Eyewear employee in the Bronx: “An employee said she was worried because she thought a vaccine had transformed the characters in the movie ‘I Am Legend ‘in zombies. People opposed to vaccines widely disseminated this claim about the film’s plot on social media. “
It’s really a popular meme, believe it or not. On Monday, several days after Hong’s story was released, one of the “I Am Legend” writers stepped in. Akiva Goldsman, co-writer and executive producer of the film, tweeted, “Oh. My.God. It’s a movie. I made this up. It’s. Not. Real.”
Meet the “Tucker Carlson fans who were vaxxed”
Olga Khazan of The Atlantic asked more than a dozen “Fox News host’s vaccinated fans,” mostly identified via Twitter, about “what it will take for more Republicans to get vaccinated.” Khazan said that “one factor seemed to have played the biggest role in my interviewees’ decision to get vaccinated: a genuine fear of Covid-19”. She concluded that “a strategy based on fear” might make sense …
“How can we help?”
Laurie Garrett, the acclaimed science journalist, underline Monday that “the internet is full of stories like these” – stories about vaccine skeptics, sometimes outright naysayers, who end up dying from the virus. She linked it to a Slate story about Dick Farrel, a right-wing Florida radio host who died last week, and a CNN story about six Florida church members who have died in recent weeks.
Garrett said “Liberals respond“ to stories ”with sarcastic and superior comments – an attitude“ serves them well. ”But we won’t stop # COVID19 unless we express compassion. Why were they induced in error? How can we help? “
Recommended reading
– Ray A. Smith’s new story is titled “Immunization Status Makes Americans Choose Side …” (WSJ)
– PolitiFact’s page full of fact-checking Covid is a revealing look at the kinds of narcotic memes that are making the rounds on social media … (PolitiFact)
– Charles Blow on “Anti-Vax Madness” Toll: There are “dead people today – many of them! Hadn’t fed them lies about the virus …” (NYT)
– Fake website went “viral in anti-vaccine circles” after rumors spread that a website “offered money to people willing to get rid of uninvited family, friends and neighbors vaccinated “, reports David Gilbert … (Vice)
– This dynamic is linked to: Zeeshan Aleem argues that “the political and media elites of the ruling right are creating a climate in which the very idea of a known and shared reality is dying out.” This is what Dr Frank Courmier was talking about in Baton Rouge: The insidious “war on truth” that must be defeated … (NBC)
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