Taylor Lorenz

Anti vaxxers believe illness is good for you, disease mitigations can harm you, and public health is a personal choice

Now, liberals and leftists do too

Excellent reporting by Julia Doubleday on how far right anti vaxx beliefs have been mainstreamed https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/liberals-joined-conservatives-to

Liberals joined conservatives to mainstream anti-vax beliefs about viruses and public health

Viruses are bad for kids' health. Public health is a collective effort. Liberals no longer believe either.

The Gauntlet
Apr 9, 2024 at 7:02pmWeb
Show threadTaylor LorenzApr 9, 2024

"Fundamentally, anti-vaxxers believe that some people should survive, and others should not. Some people should have rights and privileges, others should not. Some people are superior, others inferior.

This deeply fascist belief is the beating heart of COVID normalization." https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/liberals-joined-conservatives-to

Liberals joined conservatives to mainstream anti-vax beliefs about viruses and public health

Viruses are bad for kids' health. Public health is a collective effort. Liberals no longer believe either.

The Gauntlet
Show threadTaylor LorenzApr 9, 2024
"The story of COVID normalization is ultimately a story of breaking solidarity. We went from embracing a social model of public health that prioritized the safety of vulnerable people as the greatest priority, to one that explicitly denies them safety and promotes harming them." https://www.thegauntlet.news/p/liberals-joined-conservatives-to
Liberals joined conservatives to mainstream anti-vax beliefs about viruses and public health

Viruses are bad for kids' health. Public health is a collective effort. Liberals no longer believe either.

The Gauntlet
Show threadDruidApr 11, 2024

@taylorlorenz

Does it get anymore American than that? Prioritizing the safety of the vulnerable seems as opposed to our culture as it does being desirable. It is as though cruelty is the point.

Show threadAdam KatzApr 9, 2024

@taylorlorenz
The vast majority of Fox News staff is vaccinated (the Fox Corporation actually mandated all NYC employees be vaccinated).

While this was decently well covered in the (non-right-wing) news, the filter bubble probably ensured that anti-vaxxers missed it. It's too bad we didn't get it up on billboards or something.

Nearly all Fox staffers vaccinated for Covid even as hosts cast doubt on vaccine

More than 90% of Fox Corporation staff inoculated, according to memo announcing daily testing for unvaccinated employees

The Guardian
Show threadGVF 🇨🇦Apr 9, 2024

@taylorlorenz I understood from the start that herd immunity to a coronavirus was virtually impossible.

Getting the community immunity high enough to bring the R number under 1 was always the goal, as I saw it.

Seems too much pro-vax was anti-right and not an understanding of the science.

Show threadAyushdasApr 10, 2024
@taylorlorenz Gordon Amherst fans I guess
Show threadPeter SaulnierApr 10, 2024
@taylorlorenz I don't know if I agree on every point but I'm glad someone is talking about this.
Show threadLordWabbitApr 10, 2024

@taylorlorenz You are lumping people who don't trust the COVID vax in with the people who don't trust any vax. Which is disingenuous and aimed at belittling them.

As time passes and more data is accrued it seems that not taking an experimental drug made using experimental techniques and not tested properly or thoroughly as well as the very very dodgy mass production of the goop seems to have been the wiser choice. Especially for something with such a low death rate.

Show threadMylesRydenApr 9, 2024

@taylorlorenz

To be fair, there were already plenty on the left, even before covid, that thought that vaccines and other medical treatments were harmful interventions designed only to make money for drug companies.

Show threadTaylor LorenzApr 9, 2024
@MylesRyden sure, but those same people now are the mainstream (which is scary!)
Show threadcognitively accessible mathApr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz @MylesRyden Once medicine became totally profit driven .... it became so much easier to believe.
Show threadEmmett O'ConnellApr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz at least in the PNW, anti vax belief infected both sides of the political spectrum before the pandemic, and in my town (Olympia, WA) was solidly much more more prevalent in leftish circles
Show threadThe Hearse You Die To Get In AgainApr 9, 2024
@emmettoconnell
i associated antivax more with the like granola hippie left than the right until very recently
@taylorlorenz
Show threadMac JusticeApr 9, 2024
@emmettoconnell @taylorlorenz Vashon had measles outbreaks before 2020, but I think covid actually pushed them toward better vaccination attitudes
Show threadDavid HigleyApr 9, 2024
@macjustice @emmettoconnell @taylorlorenz Totally true about Vashon. Childhood vaccine rates were amongst the worst in the country. Covid vaccine rates are much better, but I don’t know if that reflects in the normal childhood shots or not. As an aside, the median age on Vashon is in the 50s
Show threadLesley Carhart Apr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz this is all spot on, but I wish we would also talk about how many of us are also getting quite beyond simple peer pressured in order to keep jobs, volunteer gigs, see friends and family at all - I’ve been physically attacked for wearing a basic kn95 twice in the last few months in public places. I get notably excluded from professional opportunities if I do basic mitigations, like being unable to eat for 12 hours at a time. I think a lot of us care a lot - but it’s being made economically and socially untenable to be safe outside vaccination and private, personal activities like errands.
Show threadJenkins instance 🐶🐾Apr 9, 2024
@hacks4pancakes @taylorlorenz OMG Lesley that’s horrific to be assaulted for trying to not catch a deadly disease. I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Show threadLesley Carhart Apr 9, 2024
@jjenkins101201 @taylorlorenz multiple times. I travel for work.
Show threadSpazcosoftApr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz wonderful piece. I couldnt have written my own take better.
Show threadCosvakApr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz wasn't the first wave of the anti vax movement a liberal/hard left thing. Or was perspective of the mid to late 2000's warped from living in nowhere Wisconsin at that time?
Show threadblsApr 9, 2024
@taylorlorenz Seems like a good way to thin the herd...plenty of vocal anti-vaxxers didn't survive covid
Show threadMohammadApr 10, 2024
@taylorlorenz these people are usually from a relatively poor section of society so they think that every one wants to hurt them