We need to understand how we can be led astray.
October 15, 2021 2:38 PM Subscribe
The Unvaccinated May Not Be Who You Think. "Almost 95 percent of those over 65 in the United States have received at least one dose. This is a remarkable number, given that polling has shown that this age group is prone to online misinformation, is heavily represented among Fox News viewers and is more likely to vote Republican. Clearly, misinformation is not destiny."
"Research on the unvaccinated by KFF from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance."
"It may well be that some of the unvaccinated are a bit like cats stuck in a tree. They’ve made bad decisions earlier and now may be frozen, part in fear, and unable to admit their initial hesitancy wasn’t a good idea, so they may come back with a version of how they are just doing “more research.” In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well. If all the unvaccinated truly believed that vaccines were that dangerous, more of them would have quit. These mandates may be making it possible for those people previously frozen in fear to cross the line, but in a face-saving manner."
"...consider something hidden amid all the other dysfunction that plagues us: fear of needles.
Don’t roll your eyes. Prepandemic research suggests that fear of needles may affect up to 25 percent of adults and may lead up to 16 percent of adults to skip or delay vaccinations. For many, it’s not as simple as “suck it up”: It’s a condition that can lead to panic attacks and even fainting. "
"Research on the unvaccinated by KFF from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance."
"It may well be that some of the unvaccinated are a bit like cats stuck in a tree. They’ve made bad decisions earlier and now may be frozen, part in fear, and unable to admit their initial hesitancy wasn’t a good idea, so they may come back with a version of how they are just doing “more research.” In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well. If all the unvaccinated truly believed that vaccines were that dangerous, more of them would have quit. These mandates may be making it possible for those people previously frozen in fear to cross the line, but in a face-saving manner."
"...consider something hidden amid all the other dysfunction that plagues us: fear of needles.
Don’t roll your eyes. Prepandemic research suggests that fear of needles may affect up to 25 percent of adults and may lead up to 16 percent of adults to skip or delay vaccinations. For many, it’s not as simple as “suck it up”: It’s a condition that can lead to panic attacks and even fainting. "
Part of the problem may be how the alt-right is hijacking media attention by being the most obnoxious (kinda Tucker Carlson and Fox News, and the people who harass parents at schools and get coverage) leading to the "vaccine-hesitant" believing there's more popular support than there actually is.
Personally, I'd report the ratio of 3 antivaxxer deaths to 1 news of antivaxxer outrage. THEN let's see how popular that becomes.
posted by kschang at 3:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Personally, I'd report the ratio of 3 antivaxxer deaths to 1 news of antivaxxer outrage. THEN let's see how popular that becomes.
posted by kschang at 3:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
It matches what I see at work (low income, 100% minority school with many undocumented parents).
Every other day the nurse comes in to class to deliver the private envelopes to students warning abt a potential exposure. Most students are not vaccinated bc they don't believe they can get sick and probably also bc they need the clinic to be offered through the school, require NO paperwork or health insurance, require NO advanced scheduling,and be heavily advertised.
posted by subdee at 3:15 PM on October 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
Every other day the nurse comes in to class to deliver the private envelopes to students warning abt a potential exposure. Most students are not vaccinated bc they don't believe they can get sick and probably also bc they need the clinic to be offered through the school, require NO paperwork or health insurance, require NO advanced scheduling,and be heavily advertised.
posted by subdee at 3:15 PM on October 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
People over 65 remember polio.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:27 PM on October 15, 2021 [75 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 3:27 PM on October 15, 2021 [75 favorites]
I wonder whether a personal understanding of the life-saving value of vaccines may also be a factor for people over 65 compared with younger people. I was talking about the current pandemic with an 80-something year old woman recently and she brought up polio and her memories of people she'd known who had had polio, and what a huge deal it was when the polio vaccine became available. Younger people don't have that lived experience (thanks, largely, to the effectiveness of mandated vaccinations for measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, hepatitis B, influenza type B, polio, whooping cough, tetanus and chickenpox).
posted by kristi at 3:29 PM on October 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by kristi at 3:29 PM on October 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
Also: I am such a fan of the KFF (the Kaiser Family Foundation) and the amazing, voluminous research they do.
posted by kristi at 3:30 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by kristi at 3:30 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Abehammerb Lincoln: "People over 65 remember polio."
Came here to say this.
posted by chavenet at 3:33 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
Came here to say this.
posted by chavenet at 3:33 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
"Research on the unvaccinated by KFF from this September showed the most powerful predictor of who remained unvaccinated was not age, politics, race, income or location, but the lack of health insurance."
NYT article is paywalled. So, first - was the lack of health insurance a driver to get vaccinated, or to avoid it? Second - please confirm that the vaccinations are free. (I'm not in the US)
I've been a little surprised by who got it and who hasn't. Some younger self-employed or financial-industry types of our acquaintance have been refusing it, or expressing the most objection to the coercion and mandates.
(yes we're fully vaxxed; did so as soon as available to us)
posted by Artful Codger at 3:36 PM on October 15, 2021
NYT article is paywalled. So, first - was the lack of health insurance a driver to get vaccinated, or to avoid it? Second - please confirm that the vaccinations are free. (I'm not in the US)
I've been a little surprised by who got it and who hasn't. Some younger self-employed or financial-industry types of our acquaintance have been refusing it, or expressing the most objection to the coercion and mandates.
(yes we're fully vaxxed; did so as soon as available to us)
posted by Artful Codger at 3:36 PM on October 15, 2021
Came here to say My Dad Remembers Lining Up Outside The School For The Polio Vaccine. He got the covid vaccine it as soon as it was available, despite being an AVID FauxNews watcher, devout Republican and big fan of Trump.
posted by which_chick at 3:38 PM on October 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by which_chick at 3:38 PM on October 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
Vaccinations are free in the US. I suspect not everyone knows that.
posted by suelac at 3:39 PM on October 15, 2021 [19 favorites]
posted by suelac at 3:39 PM on October 15, 2021 [19 favorites]
People over 65 remember polio.
I stood in line with my dad and received my Salk vaccine on a sugar cube in a gymnasium. This imprinted two things on me. First, there are invisible things that can harm me. Secondly, there are magical things that can protect me...
posted by jim in austin at 3:41 PM on October 15, 2021 [57 favorites]
I stood in line with my dad and received my Salk vaccine on a sugar cube in a gymnasium. This imprinted two things on me. First, there are invisible things that can harm me. Secondly, there are magical things that can protect me...
posted by jim in austin at 3:41 PM on October 15, 2021 [57 favorites]
Yeah, there's definitely a moderately strong correlation between vaccination rates and political views, but that's not all of it.
I have at least three unvaxxed friends who are mostly on the progressive end of the political spectrum. One is a 50ish Af-Am guy who says he won't get vaxxed because he doesn't trust the government. The other two are New-Age-y/all-natural/woo-woo 40+ white women who reject modern medicine/science. Both the women have graduate degrees, and none of these three would ever watch Fox News.
posted by mikeand1 at 3:48 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
I have at least three unvaxxed friends who are mostly on the progressive end of the political spectrum. One is a 50ish Af-Am guy who says he won't get vaxxed because he doesn't trust the government. The other two are New-Age-y/all-natural/woo-woo 40+ white women who reject modern medicine/science. Both the women have graduate degrees, and none of these three would ever watch Fox News.
posted by mikeand1 at 3:48 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well.
This . . . is fucking naive.
The mandates (from both public orgs and private corporations) are working because most of the people loudly and publicly whinging about the vaccine are fucking emotional children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and when push comes to shove and they personally are going to face direct personal recognizable consequences from being unvaccinated - like getting fired - they mostly shut the fuck up and get vaccinated.
This is an entirely different thing from various minority groups and folks from lower socio-economic classes being hesitant or unable to get fully vaccinated for financial or availability reasons even if those reasons are not entirely reflecting reality.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [38 favorites]
This . . . is fucking naive.
The mandates (from both public orgs and private corporations) are working because most of the people loudly and publicly whinging about the vaccine are fucking emotional children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and when push comes to shove and they personally are going to face direct personal recognizable consequences from being unvaccinated - like getting fired - they mostly shut the fuck up and get vaccinated.
This is an entirely different thing from various minority groups and folks from lower socio-economic classes being hesitant or unable to get fully vaccinated for financial or availability reasons even if those reasons are not entirely reflecting reality.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [38 favorites]
Vaccinations are free in the US. I suspect not everyone knows that.
Doesn't stop Walgreens from requiring insurance cards & turning people away if they're missing them, though.
If you don't *have* insurance, and ignore all the signs about requiring insurance cards, then they'll give it to you if you can show documentation (and if you push past again, they don't require that either). PS, don't get rattled by "we need to have a credit card on file, in case the insurance company doesn't reimburse us fully". After all, that won't happen, right?
I saw it for myself waiting in line for my own shot. There's a whole lot of procedural ways to provide every implication that you need to have insurance & cash without outright *stating* it.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [73 favorites]
Doesn't stop Walgreens from requiring insurance cards & turning people away if they're missing them, though.
If you don't *have* insurance, and ignore all the signs about requiring insurance cards, then they'll give it to you if you can show documentation (and if you push past again, they don't require that either). PS, don't get rattled by "we need to have a credit card on file, in case the insurance company doesn't reimburse us fully". After all, that won't happen, right?
I saw it for myself waiting in line for my own shot. There's a whole lot of procedural ways to provide every implication that you need to have insurance & cash without outright *stating* it.
posted by CrystalDave at 3:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [73 favorites]
Vaccinations are free in the US. I suspect not everyone knows that.
I find this quite puzzling. In my area, it's been widely publicized that the vaccines are free. I'd be very curious to see a follow-up that covered how people were getting information about the vaccine.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
I find this quite puzzling. In my area, it's been widely publicized that the vaccines are free. I'd be very curious to see a follow-up that covered how people were getting information about the vaccine.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 3:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
CrystalDave that's really unfortunate. In my area, the initial push was all in public locations, e.g. fairgrounds, trailers set up outside the hospital, etc. That also corresponds to the earliest part of the vaccine drive where you had to be older to get vaxxed.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
This is a remarkable number, given that polling has shown that this age group is prone to online misinformation, is heavily represented among Fox News viewers and is more likely to vote Republican.
Every single person I know over 65 who is trafficking in all forms of modern confederacy misinformation (vax, masks, public health, trans rights, "January 6th was just a peaceful protest", the lot) is vaccinated. Every. Single. One. And every single one is very, very oblique about their own COVID precautions online.
The fecal noise they spew all over social media is performance of cult loyalty, nothing more. They don't believe what they're saying, they're saying it because that's how you profess ingroup loyalty.
posted by tclark at 4:16 PM on October 15, 2021 [36 favorites]
Every single person I know over 65 who is trafficking in all forms of modern confederacy misinformation (vax, masks, public health, trans rights, "January 6th was just a peaceful protest", the lot) is vaccinated. Every. Single. One. And every single one is very, very oblique about their own COVID precautions online.
The fecal noise they spew all over social media is performance of cult loyalty, nothing more. They don't believe what they're saying, they're saying it because that's how you profess ingroup loyalty.
posted by tclark at 4:16 PM on October 15, 2021 [36 favorites]
To add: they don't believe what they're saying about the vaccines. You can tell they're smart enough to be oblique about a lot of things that might make them look anything less than wonderful upstanding folks. What they believe about race, gender, and equality is abundantly revealed in the the bigotry-shaped hole in their toxic pronouncements, "all lives matter" and the like.
posted by tclark at 4:35 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by tclark at 4:35 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
An excellent article. As usual Tufecki offers a solid example of looking carefully at evidence.
posted by doctornemo at 4:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 4:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm paywalled but what I'd like to know is the Venn Diagram of antivaxxers vs unvaccinated. It is a subset, a majority or minority, etc.? What do the distribution of numbers look like.
I'm in Canada and I actually know two very kind family friends who are steadfastly unvaccinated. They are not typical though. For some reason they got into their heads very early on that they wanted the Novavax vaccine, and will settle for nothing less than that. So they're pro vaccine, but afraid of vaccine side effects, and yet due to their own risk calculation are still waiting, in isolation at home, for a vaccine that may or may not arrive. I'd broach the subject to gently nudge them but then I don't actually meet them long enough to attempt that.
posted by polymodus at 5:09 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm in Canada and I actually know two very kind family friends who are steadfastly unvaccinated. They are not typical though. For some reason they got into their heads very early on that they wanted the Novavax vaccine, and will settle for nothing less than that. So they're pro vaccine, but afraid of vaccine side effects, and yet due to their own risk calculation are still waiting, in isolation at home, for a vaccine that may or may not arrive. I'd broach the subject to gently nudge them but then I don't actually meet them long enough to attempt that.
posted by polymodus at 5:09 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Anecdata here, but my silent generation 88 year old Rush Limbaugh super fan / fox news consumer grandfather got the vaccine as soon as he could back in March. He's twisted into this weird spot of believing that it's the mandates that are the problem, that there's never been vaccine mandates (very false, but it's been five decades so it could've slipped his mind), and that the mandates are tyrannical overreach from a fraudulent president trying to exercise grip against an American public that doesn't want it.
It seems like that's the general bent of right wing conspiracy right now. The vaccines being safe are beside the point for a lot of the Boomer/Silent Gen folks, the real danger is a government telling you what to do even if it's in your best interest to do so. Because if they can make get vaccinated, WHAT ELSE can the evil democrats make you do???????
posted by Philipschall at 5:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
It seems like that's the general bent of right wing conspiracy right now. The vaccines being safe are beside the point for a lot of the Boomer/Silent Gen folks, the real danger is a government telling you what to do even if it's in your best interest to do so. Because if they can make get vaccinated, WHAT ELSE can the evil democrats make you do???????
posted by Philipschall at 5:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
I said this in the other thread, but "remember polio" isn't exactly the magic catchphrase Mefites think it is. Lots and lots of vaccine refusal in countries like India, where I assure you, polio is anything but a memory and where right-wing misinformation is on a whole nother level. (I'm guessing most Americans have not seen the Whatsapp forwards that have been circulating across South Asia. Think 1990s era chain letters meet Uncle Jim-Bob's Facebook rants.)
Back to the US, though. As mentioned in the KFF survey, the biggest prediction is health insurance, or rather, the biggest barrier is lack of health insurance. And the vast majority of seniors in the US are enrolled in our sorry excuse for a national health insurance plan, so it was relatively easy for them to get vaccinated. Not to mention the higher proportion of seniors living in nursing homes where vaccines were literally brought to them. (Admittedly Medicare is laughably inadequate compared to an actual national health plan, but still approx 9 million times better than what us poor fuckers under 65 have to deal with, not to mention undocumented folk.)
My mom, 62, recently had to get tested (she was negative) and not only was the CVS testing site obnoxious to navigate, it also wanted her insurance card before it would show us the appointment options. The test was of course free, so why the insurance card? Ditto when she got her booster. I got mine at a local health dept and didn't need anything, but Walgreens won't come near you without insurance.
Speaking of polio, Salk famously refused to profit from his vaccine, saying "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" and 65 years later, CVS and Walgreens and local clinics are putting up artificial barriers that will continue to prolong the pandemic. It's not the virus that's the problem; for once it's not even fascist brainwashing that's the problem. It's the US dependence on a for-profit capitalistic healthcare system. (Even the ACA exchanges use a capitalistic metaphor: the Marketplace.) As long as we continue with Us vs Them, Me vs You, we ain't making no headway.
posted by basalganglia at 5:22 PM on October 15, 2021 [58 favorites]
Back to the US, though. As mentioned in the KFF survey, the biggest prediction is health insurance, or rather, the biggest barrier is lack of health insurance. And the vast majority of seniors in the US are enrolled in our sorry excuse for a national health insurance plan, so it was relatively easy for them to get vaccinated. Not to mention the higher proportion of seniors living in nursing homes where vaccines were literally brought to them. (Admittedly Medicare is laughably inadequate compared to an actual national health plan, but still approx 9 million times better than what us poor fuckers under 65 have to deal with, not to mention undocumented folk.)
My mom, 62, recently had to get tested (she was negative) and not only was the CVS testing site obnoxious to navigate, it also wanted her insurance card before it would show us the appointment options. The test was of course free, so why the insurance card? Ditto when she got her booster. I got mine at a local health dept and didn't need anything, but Walgreens won't come near you without insurance.
Speaking of polio, Salk famously refused to profit from his vaccine, saying "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?" and 65 years later, CVS and Walgreens and local clinics are putting up artificial barriers that will continue to prolong the pandemic. It's not the virus that's the problem; for once it's not even fascist brainwashing that's the problem. It's the US dependence on a for-profit capitalistic healthcare system. (Even the ACA exchanges use a capitalistic metaphor: the Marketplace.) As long as we continue with Us vs Them, Me vs You, we ain't making no headway.
posted by basalganglia at 5:22 PM on October 15, 2021 [58 favorites]
WHAT ELSE can the truly evil republicans make you do? With all the news coming out of Texas and Florida about making people get vaccinated to be illegal it seems that the common refrain here on the blue that the republicans are a death cult is true. If this survey reflects reality then maybe there are true believers in the cult who just happen to get jabbed on the QT despite all the death cult preaching they hear offers some hope. I’m happy to live in 90+% land…
posted by njohnson23 at 5:26 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 5:26 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Just as an aside, "the Marketplace" is not a capitalistic metaphor, it's a mercantile metaphor.
posted by heatherlogan at 5:35 PM on October 15, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 5:35 PM on October 15, 2021 [13 favorites]
I have been visiting my mom here in the US for the past two weeks, and wow, does the media really really push the anti-vaxxers angle. Even if they are a minority, one could be forgiven not thinking that. I forgot how bonkers how US news media is, and oh my god, no wonder so folks are just exhausted all the fucking time.
posted by Kitteh at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [25 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [25 favorites]
Since 65+ people generally had access to the vaccine early on in the rollout, is it possible that they just got in there before whether someone was vaccinated became an identity that is solidly calcified along political lines to the point where it is today?
posted by naoko at 6:03 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by naoko at 6:03 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
consider something hidden amid all the other dysfunction that plagues us: fear of needles.
I got vaccinated and have a real, though not crippling, needle phobia, and I really, really, really wish that seemingly every single news article and video segment about the vaccine didn't feel the need for loving close-ups of needles going into skin, and occasionally just the full gleaming length of the needles themselves. I mean, why? Why do this? Show people leaving happy with a sticker or something, for pity's sake.
For people in the US right now, is getting a shot without insurance still as easy as it was at the beginning of the pandemic? I know that today, even though PCR tests are still supposed to be available for free without insurance, in reality they're only available in a tiny fraction of pharmacies and health centers. Actually tracking one down can be a daunting process where you'll need internet connectivity and time and patience, and English reading skills, and often the ability to travel to the nearest free testing location, which may not be near at all, plus why not make people fill out surveys and agree to long pages of legal conditions in order to make an appointment. I can't imagine that deters anyone at all. (And for context for people living in saner countries, a non-free PCR test costs around 180 dollars (at least in the area I'm familiar with), while the less-accurate take-home tests are still hard to find and cost many times what they cost abroad.)
The pictures linked in the article of Fox News behind the scenes was amazing not just because everyone was masked, but because they were all properly masked, with nary a dick-nose in sight.
posted by trig at 6:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
I got vaccinated and have a real, though not crippling, needle phobia, and I really, really, really wish that seemingly every single news article and video segment about the vaccine didn't feel the need for loving close-ups of needles going into skin, and occasionally just the full gleaming length of the needles themselves. I mean, why? Why do this? Show people leaving happy with a sticker or something, for pity's sake.
For people in the US right now, is getting a shot without insurance still as easy as it was at the beginning of the pandemic? I know that today, even though PCR tests are still supposed to be available for free without insurance, in reality they're only available in a tiny fraction of pharmacies and health centers. Actually tracking one down can be a daunting process where you'll need internet connectivity and time and patience, and English reading skills, and often the ability to travel to the nearest free testing location, which may not be near at all, plus why not make people fill out surveys and agree to long pages of legal conditions in order to make an appointment. I can't imagine that deters anyone at all. (And for context for people living in saner countries, a non-free PCR test costs around 180 dollars (at least in the area I'm familiar with), while the less-accurate take-home tests are still hard to find and cost many times what they cost abroad.)
The pictures linked in the article of Fox News behind the scenes was amazing not just because everyone was masked, but because they were all properly masked, with nary a dick-nose in sight.
posted by trig at 6:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
A friend works at FOX news... The majority of people who work behind the scenes at FOX are progressive, they work there and not somewhere else for the paycheck.
posted by subdee at 6:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by subdee at 6:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
WHAT ELSE can the truly evil republicans make you do?
I got my vaccination at Meijer.
posted by clavdivs at 6:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I got my vaccination at Meijer.
posted by clavdivs at 6:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
...consider something hidden amid all the other dysfunction that plagues us: fear of needles.
I have suspected this for a while now. I know at least one person who put off getting the vaccine who has a fear of needles. He was eventually browbeaten into it by his partner. But I wouldn't be surprised if many vaccine resisters are motivated by needlephobia. They may spout conspiracy theories as a cover, or they may semi-genuinely believe them as a matter of motivated reasoning.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:03 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have suspected this for a while now. I know at least one person who put off getting the vaccine who has a fear of needles. He was eventually browbeaten into it by his partner. But I wouldn't be surprised if many vaccine resisters are motivated by needlephobia. They may spout conspiracy theories as a cover, or they may semi-genuinely believe them as a matter of motivated reasoning.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:03 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I was curious so I went through the NYT comments and I have to admit, I'm surprised by how much of the NYT readership are total pieces of shit.
I think the article's argument is that a significant number of unvaccinated people aren't driven by politics but instead are
The only popular solution seems to be vaccine mandates as punishment.
posted by zymil at 7:05 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
I think the article's argument is that a significant number of unvaccinated people aren't driven by politics but instead are
- confused about vaccines and have no access to medical advice
- have been traumatised by a racist and financially predatory medical system
- are afraid of needles and are being refused accomodation to the point of being considered drug seeking when asking for sedation
The only popular solution seems to be vaccine mandates as punishment.
posted by zymil at 7:05 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well.
This . . . is fucking naive.
Did you read the article? Zeynep Tufecki, as usual, brings lots of data.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:09 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
This . . . is fucking naive.
Did you read the article? Zeynep Tufecki, as usual, brings lots of data.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:09 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that a lot of right-wingers never believed their own bluster about the vaccine, and they're more than happy to take it to protect themselves, and that the idea that we were "wrong about them" is a joke, because this is still wrong.
The whole point is many of them can't stand by their convictions, period. The number of cops screaming about how they'll quit over the vaccine mandate in my state is shadowed over by the fact that very few cops actually quit and most got the jab.
They are much more interested in their paycheck, no matter what the fuck they say. It's literally all just to trigger the libs, they don't give a shit. And turning tail and getting the vaccine literally won't change their shitty attitude.
posted by deadaluspark at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
The whole point is many of them can't stand by their convictions, period. The number of cops screaming about how they'll quit over the vaccine mandate in my state is shadowed over by the fact that very few cops actually quit and most got the jab.
They are much more interested in their paycheck, no matter what the fuck they say. It's literally all just to trigger the libs, they don't give a shit. And turning tail and getting the vaccine literally won't change their shitty attitude.
posted by deadaluspark at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
But on the other hand, also yes, American media works really hard to make sure the American working class is too busy infighting to actually do anything about the people who are actually fucking the entire working class.
And people wonder how the refrain "Fake News" gained fucking traction. Maybe it's because they're selling ideas that obviously only benefit certain people.
posted by deadaluspark at 7:38 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
And people wonder how the refrain "Fake News" gained fucking traction. Maybe it's because they're selling ideas that obviously only benefit certain people.
posted by deadaluspark at 7:38 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
It's a good article, but I think there still likely is a fairly significant cohort of people who are unvaccinated and are largely right-wing, religious and rural. Here in Canada, 13% of the over 12 population hasn't even had one dose (compared to 23% in the US). It's pretty clear that those people tend to be conservative, religious and rural (and there is also a smaller contingent of new-age types). No one is worried about health insurance here, of course and it is very easy to get a vaccine at this point. Some people have trouble getting a regular family doctor, but almost everyone is able to access medical advice.
We're starting to see vaccine mandates for government employees and some others and I think if those grow, we'll see the ranks of the unvaccinated shrink even further, leaving just the hardcore hold outs. That's not because vaccine mandates are punitive, but because they enforce a certain consideration for your community that some people are not displaying.
posted by ssg at 8:00 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
We're starting to see vaccine mandates for government employees and some others and I think if those grow, we'll see the ranks of the unvaccinated shrink even further, leaving just the hardcore hold outs. That's not because vaccine mandates are punitive, but because they enforce a certain consideration for your community that some people are not displaying.
posted by ssg at 8:00 PM on October 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Definitely the case where I live (Victoria, Australia). Hume is home to about 3% of the population of the state, yet accounted for about 40% of all Covid infections at the start of the latest outbreak. We had about 1 in 40 people with an active Covid infection. It also had the lowest vaccination rate in the state. It is home to the biggest middle eastern community in Victoria, many of them refugees: neighbour to my left / right are both refugee families from Iran and Iraq, one of them has barely functional english.
Is culture to blame? Misinformation, non compliance with mask wearing... maybe. But there's also definitely the impact of lack of vaccine access and lack of language appropriate information: there was not even a state run vaccination hub. Without a state run hub, people had to turn to GPs for vaccine access... and, predictably, the area also had the one of the lowest ratios of GPs to population in the state. Even I struggled to get access to a GP, with most clinics saying they were not accepting new patients.
They opened up a state run hub in Hume and started community outreach in mosques, etc... within a few weeks, Hume had 86% of eligible population first dosed, compared to the state average of 88%.
posted by xdvesper at 8:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
Is culture to blame? Misinformation, non compliance with mask wearing... maybe. But there's also definitely the impact of lack of vaccine access and lack of language appropriate information: there was not even a state run vaccination hub. Without a state run hub, people had to turn to GPs for vaccine access... and, predictably, the area also had the one of the lowest ratios of GPs to population in the state. Even I struggled to get access to a GP, with most clinics saying they were not accepting new patients.
They opened up a state run hub in Hume and started community outreach in mosques, etc... within a few weeks, Hume had 86% of eligible population first dosed, compared to the state average of 88%.
posted by xdvesper at 8:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
I think this article is correct that the reasons espoused by vaccine-resistant White Republicans and (for instance) Black Democrats are somewhat similar, and correlated with access to healthcare. But saying that insurance is the biggest factor conflates a lot of things together, and really understates how big the relative difference is between the partisan effect and all other effects.
The best interactive polling data on vaccination is Civiqs, which allows you to plot everything over time for all combinations of demographics (many of which are presumably interpolated). If for instance you choose non-college respondents (those most likely to be working class and lack health care), and then compare groups within that segment, the percentages of those who are "No" on the vaccine are:
Black Democrats: 19% on 12/20, 6% today.
White Democrats: 6% on 12/20, 1% today.
White Republicans: 45% on 12/20, 45% today.
And if you toggle within Republicans between no-college and college, the latter is about 10% lower on "No".
So education makes at most a 10 point difference, race makes a 5-13 point difference, but party makes a 40 point difference, even when controlling for the other stuff. No insurance has a very low vaccination percentage, but that's mainly because it combines a bunch of low-vaccination groups in one bundle: the poor, the young, the non-white, and particularly poor white Republicans. Treating these features as independent effects though, it's not insurance, race, education or income that has the largest effect: it's partisanship, by a long shot.
posted by chortly at 8:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
The best interactive polling data on vaccination is Civiqs, which allows you to plot everything over time for all combinations of demographics (many of which are presumably interpolated). If for instance you choose non-college respondents (those most likely to be working class and lack health care), and then compare groups within that segment, the percentages of those who are "No" on the vaccine are:
Black Democrats: 19% on 12/20, 6% today.
White Democrats: 6% on 12/20, 1% today.
White Republicans: 45% on 12/20, 45% today.
And if you toggle within Republicans between no-college and college, the latter is about 10% lower on "No".
So education makes at most a 10 point difference, race makes a 5-13 point difference, but party makes a 40 point difference, even when controlling for the other stuff. No insurance has a very low vaccination percentage, but that's mainly because it combines a bunch of low-vaccination groups in one bundle: the poor, the young, the non-white, and particularly poor white Republicans. Treating these features as independent effects though, it's not insurance, race, education or income that has the largest effect: it's partisanship, by a long shot.
posted by chortly at 8:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
In fact, that’s exactly why the mandates may be working so well.
This . . . is fucking naive.
Did you read the article? Zeynep Tufecki, as usual, brings lots of data.
I, in fact, did read the article.
The issue is not with the lots of data. The issue is that the extremely vague interpretation of the data - and even Tufecki's writing in the article - actually does more to reinforce the point that the loudest conservative anti-vaxxers are full-of-shit lying and using their anti-vax stance as a from of tribal virtue signaling.
To wit:
So trying to swivel from that to the idea that the mandates work because the unvaccinated are like a cat stuck up a tree is like, "where the fucking fuck have you been for the last decade?"
Again, this is not to say that we as a country - and the Biden administration - have done an exemplary job getting the vaccine to people dealing with a variety of systemic issues. We have not. But that's a far cry from looking at data that says 95% of over 65 are vaccinated and drawing the conclusion that there's something complicated going on.
There isn't. The over 65's and Fox News and the others who are spreading vaccine objections and hesitation and misinformation while being vaccinated themselves are full of shit. That's it, that's the story.
This whole thing comes across as more NYT apologia for recalcitrant conservatives. I'm surprised there wasn't an interview with a bunch of anti-vaxxers in a small town diner in Ohio.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
This . . . is fucking naive.
Did you read the article? Zeynep Tufecki, as usual, brings lots of data.
I, in fact, did read the article.
The issue is not with the lots of data. The issue is that the extremely vague interpretation of the data - and even Tufecki's writing in the article - actually does more to reinforce the point that the loudest conservative anti-vaxxers are full-of-shit lying and using their anti-vax stance as a from of tribal virtue signaling.
To wit:
"Almost 95 percent of those over 65 in the United States have received at least one dose. This is a remarkable number, given that polling has shown that this age group is prone to online misinformation, heavily represented among Fox News viewers, and more likely to vote Republican. Clearly, misinformation is not destiny.And THAT'S the damn naivety - to write those paragraphs, especially that part about "it is not firm ideological commitments", and not grasp that the simpler and more coherent explanation (AMPLY demonstrated by conservatives & Republicans for at least the last 50 years) is that they're full of shit. Their "ideological commitment" is "Fuck everyone who isn't white and Christian (and ideally rural and male, too)", and they will lie, cheat, and steal to uphold that ideology. They're committed to that, you betcha. Consistency? Nah. That's for suckers. Extremism in the defense of White Christian Patriarchal America is no vice, in their eyes, and the end justifies the means.
Second, reality has refuted dire predictions about how Americans would respond to vaccine mandates. In a poll in September, 72 percent of the unvaccinated said they would quit if forced to be vaccinated for work. There were news articles warning of mass resignations. When large employers, school districts, and hospital systems did finally mandate vaccines, people subject to mandates got vaccinated, overwhelmingly. After United Airlines mandated vaccines, there were only 232 holdouts among 67,000 employees. Among about 10,000 employees in state-operated health care facilities in North Carolina, only 16 were fired for noncompliance.
The remarkable success of vaccine mandates shows that for many, it is not firm ideological commitments that have kept everyone from getting vaccinated"
So trying to swivel from that to the idea that the mandates work because the unvaccinated are like a cat stuck up a tree is like, "where the fucking fuck have you been for the last decade?"
Again, this is not to say that we as a country - and the Biden administration - have done an exemplary job getting the vaccine to people dealing with a variety of systemic issues. We have not. But that's a far cry from looking at data that says 95% of over 65 are vaccinated and drawing the conclusion that there's something complicated going on.
There isn't. The over 65's and Fox News and the others who are spreading vaccine objections and hesitation and misinformation while being vaccinated themselves are full of shit. That's it, that's the story.
This whole thing comes across as more NYT apologia for recalcitrant conservatives. I'm surprised there wasn't an interview with a bunch of anti-vaxxers in a small town diner in Ohio.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:14 PM on October 15, 2021 [22 favorites]
I'm not convinced by the argument that Fox News isn't so important because, hey, look at all the vaccinated old people who watch it.
1. Right-wing media wasn't pushing opposition to vaccination back at the beginning of the year, when only old people were allowed to get the shot. I'm not surprised that the most devoted 90-year-old Rush Limbaugh dittoheads have been fully vaxxed since February.
2. The message from Fox personalities like Tucker Carlson, as well as from Joe Rogan and others, isn't "nobody should get the vaccine" but only the "vulnerable" need to "risk it," and "young & healthy" people can go without.
This is consistent with an idea the Libertarian Right has been pushing since early 2020 -- go to great lengths to lock down old people, sick people, etc., but reopen everything for everyone else. Usually accompanied by some misleading Covid-19 death rate percentage. It's the same logic you see coming out of Texas and Florida: non-fatal cases are completely unimportant, so any attempt to impose rules to bring down the case numbers is unjustified tyranny.
Really, I don't think the battle here isn't about vaccines. It's about the idea of Public Health itself -- a part of government that's allowed to take away liberty in order to fight disease. Because even if we accept the dubious argument that Covid is harmless to most young & healthy individuals, the reason for the vaccines and control measures is to suppress the spread of the virus throughout the human herd. And that's what those guys don't accept.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:43 PM on October 15, 2021 [26 favorites]
1. Right-wing media wasn't pushing opposition to vaccination back at the beginning of the year, when only old people were allowed to get the shot. I'm not surprised that the most devoted 90-year-old Rush Limbaugh dittoheads have been fully vaxxed since February.
2. The message from Fox personalities like Tucker Carlson, as well as from Joe Rogan and others, isn't "nobody should get the vaccine" but only the "vulnerable" need to "risk it," and "young & healthy" people can go without.
This is consistent with an idea the Libertarian Right has been pushing since early 2020 -- go to great lengths to lock down old people, sick people, etc., but reopen everything for everyone else. Usually accompanied by some misleading Covid-19 death rate percentage. It's the same logic you see coming out of Texas and Florida: non-fatal cases are completely unimportant, so any attempt to impose rules to bring down the case numbers is unjustified tyranny.
Really, I don't think the battle here isn't about vaccines. It's about the idea of Public Health itself -- a part of government that's allowed to take away liberty in order to fight disease. Because even if we accept the dubious argument that Covid is harmless to most young & healthy individuals, the reason for the vaccines and control measures is to suppress the spread of the virus throughout the human herd. And that's what those guys don't accept.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 8:43 PM on October 15, 2021 [26 favorites]
There's a version online slightly older but not paywalled.
I've been trying to make sense of vaccination uptake in just one state, Mississippi. They had early and open no-questions-asked access to central vaccination sites in each county run by the National Guard. So in theory, equal access among counties.
It seems like majority-white counties are 10-20% less likely to get vaccinated, but that's not totally linear. Some rural counties are doing well, 20-30% better. You'd think rich counties along the coast would have overwhelming advantages, with transportation and internet access to the central scheduling system, but that's not the case.
I think the article's point that "it's complicated" is a valid one, though the article's assumptions don't match with what's going on in this state.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:08 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
I've been trying to make sense of vaccination uptake in just one state, Mississippi. They had early and open no-questions-asked access to central vaccination sites in each county run by the National Guard. So in theory, equal access among counties.
It seems like majority-white counties are 10-20% less likely to get vaccinated, but that's not totally linear. Some rural counties are doing well, 20-30% better. You'd think rich counties along the coast would have overwhelming advantages, with transportation and internet access to the central scheduling system, but that's not the case.
I think the article's point that "it's complicated" is a valid one, though the article's assumptions don't match with what's going on in this state.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:08 PM on October 15, 2021 [2 favorites]
Vaccinations are free in the US. I suspect not everyone knows that.
In my area, it's been widely publicized that the vaccines are free.
I've read several antivax reactions that are suspicious of the vaccine for this very reason. "If it's really what it's supposed to be they'd make you pay for it." It's being given away for free, for nefarious reasons, obviously. "Let that sink in."
posted by Rash at 9:48 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
In my area, it's been widely publicized that the vaccines are free.
I've read several antivax reactions that are suspicious of the vaccine for this very reason. "If it's really what it's supposed to be they'd make you pay for it." It's being given away for free, for nefarious reasons, obviously. "Let that sink in."
posted by Rash at 9:48 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
The best interactive polling data on vaccination is Civiqs, which allows you to plot everything over time for all combinations of demographics (many of which are presumably interpolated). If for instance you choose non-college respondents (those most likely to be working class and lack health care), and then compare groups within that segment, the percentages of those who are "No" on the vaccine are:
Partisan certainly plays in a part in vaccine uptake, but I'd trust CDC data over indirect polling data to draw inferences about actual behavior.
Per Civiqs, 78 percent of individuals ages 65 and older say they've been vaccinated.
Per the CDC, 95% of individuals ages 65 and up received one dose of the vaccine, and ~84% are fully vaccinated.
So, either people are lying, Civiq's respondents aren't representative of the US population, Civiq's weights are off, or Civiq's sampling methods are flawed. I would guess its a combination of the three. I find that much more likely than the CDC screwing up estimates of the US population when calculating vaccination rates.
Info about the CDC methods here and here.
Anyway, I don't find this surprising. Unequal access across racial, SES, and geographic lines was an issue with US healthcare before the pandemic. Overcoming that was always going to be more complicated than just making the vaccine free and available. Trust is a big component. There is a big difference between someone with a long term relationship with healthcare providers such as primary care doctors and someone whose relationship with the healthcare system consists of visits to emergency rooms and storefront urgent care clinics. You don't even have to reach back to past mistreatment of POC to find reasons for suspicion either. The opioid crisis is very recent, and it cuts across racial and ethnic lines. The best way to combat such mistrust is personal relationships with trusted health officials, such as a family doctor. People who don't have health insurance are highly unlikely to have such a relationship.
All that is even before you get into issues like language, education, and other SES related concerns affecting healthcare access. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, for example, relied on two separate administrations spaced a specific number of weeks apart. That was always going to be logistically difficult for some. Consider barriers such as lack of ability to control work shifts, need to juggle employment with child care, and difficulties with transportation. These are known issues that interact to make medical care access difficult.
Also, anecdotally, I've heard from a lot of young people who feel (a) SARS-COV 2 isn't a serious threat to them and (b) you can get and transmit SARS-COV 2 even if you are vaccinated, so the vaccines are pointless. I really think messaging failed here. The CDC really emphasized the study showing vaccinated and unvaccinated people had identical PCR measured viral loads to justify their change in recommendations that even vaccinated people should wear masks. The combination of that simple to understand message and the CDC's action to change their recommendations drowned out all nuance for people already skeptical of the vaccine. It also doesn't help that several prominent athletes and entertainers are pushing these views.
I've read several antivax reactions that are suspicious of the vaccine for this very reason. "If it's really what it's supposed to be they'd make you pay for it." It's being given away for free, for nefarious reasons, obviously. "Let that sink in."
One thought that occurs to me is that such doubts would be much more difficult to harbor in a country where almost all healthcare was free at the point of use. Does anyone remember back when the ACA was being debated how co-pays were touted as a means to reduce health care overuse, which was supposed to be this big issue driving rising costs? Fun times.
Also, how many times do people go for a doctor visit or medical procedure and get a bill they don't expect? Surprise billing anyone?
posted by eagles123 at 10:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
Partisan certainly plays in a part in vaccine uptake, but I'd trust CDC data over indirect polling data to draw inferences about actual behavior.
Per Civiqs, 78 percent of individuals ages 65 and older say they've been vaccinated.
Per the CDC, 95% of individuals ages 65 and up received one dose of the vaccine, and ~84% are fully vaccinated.
So, either people are lying, Civiq's respondents aren't representative of the US population, Civiq's weights are off, or Civiq's sampling methods are flawed. I would guess its a combination of the three. I find that much more likely than the CDC screwing up estimates of the US population when calculating vaccination rates.
Info about the CDC methods here and here.
Anyway, I don't find this surprising. Unequal access across racial, SES, and geographic lines was an issue with US healthcare before the pandemic. Overcoming that was always going to be more complicated than just making the vaccine free and available. Trust is a big component. There is a big difference between someone with a long term relationship with healthcare providers such as primary care doctors and someone whose relationship with the healthcare system consists of visits to emergency rooms and storefront urgent care clinics. You don't even have to reach back to past mistreatment of POC to find reasons for suspicion either. The opioid crisis is very recent, and it cuts across racial and ethnic lines. The best way to combat such mistrust is personal relationships with trusted health officials, such as a family doctor. People who don't have health insurance are highly unlikely to have such a relationship.
All that is even before you get into issues like language, education, and other SES related concerns affecting healthcare access. Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, for example, relied on two separate administrations spaced a specific number of weeks apart. That was always going to be logistically difficult for some. Consider barriers such as lack of ability to control work shifts, need to juggle employment with child care, and difficulties with transportation. These are known issues that interact to make medical care access difficult.
Also, anecdotally, I've heard from a lot of young people who feel (a) SARS-COV 2 isn't a serious threat to them and (b) you can get and transmit SARS-COV 2 even if you are vaccinated, so the vaccines are pointless. I really think messaging failed here. The CDC really emphasized the study showing vaccinated and unvaccinated people had identical PCR measured viral loads to justify their change in recommendations that even vaccinated people should wear masks. The combination of that simple to understand message and the CDC's action to change their recommendations drowned out all nuance for people already skeptical of the vaccine. It also doesn't help that several prominent athletes and entertainers are pushing these views.
I've read several antivax reactions that are suspicious of the vaccine for this very reason. "If it's really what it's supposed to be they'd make you pay for it." It's being given away for free, for nefarious reasons, obviously. "Let that sink in."
One thought that occurs to me is that such doubts would be much more difficult to harbor in a country where almost all healthcare was free at the point of use. Does anyone remember back when the ACA was being debated how co-pays were touted as a means to reduce health care overuse, which was supposed to be this big issue driving rising costs? Fun times.
Also, how many times do people go for a doctor visit or medical procedure and get a bill they don't expect? Surprise billing anyone?
posted by eagles123 at 10:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [9 favorites]
For some reason they got into their heads very early on that they wanted the Novavax vaccine, and will settle for nothing less than that.
I’ve also had conversations with unvax’d people who say they are waiting for Novavax. One acquaintance told me she has liver issues and the Novavax is the only one that won’t be toxic to her system (whereas the toxins in the Moderna Pfizer vaccines can’t be processed by her liver). I don’t know how much to get into with people how Novavax is not even on FDA’s to-do list.
I wonder if the frequency of hearing about Novavax anticipation stems from this article -
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:24 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I’ve also had conversations with unvax’d people who say they are waiting for Novavax. One acquaintance told me she has liver issues and the Novavax is the only one that won’t be toxic to her system (whereas the toxins in the Moderna Pfizer vaccines can’t be processed by her liver). I don’t know how much to get into with people how Novavax is not even on FDA’s to-do list.
I wonder if the frequency of hearing about Novavax anticipation stems from this article -
posted by Tandem Affinity at 10:24 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
A friend works at FOX news... The majority of people who work behind the scenes at FOX are progressive, they work there and not somewhere else for the paycheck.
They aren’t progressive. They’re lying to you and themselves. You didn’t get to just be a person working the admin side of the fascist government in the past and ho hum, day is over time to go not be a fascist.
It’s literally Fox News. They put Tucker on nonstop.
I hope you see what you’re apologizing for.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:45 PM on October 15, 2021 [35 favorites]
They aren’t progressive. They’re lying to you and themselves. You didn’t get to just be a person working the admin side of the fascist government in the past and ho hum, day is over time to go not be a fascist.
It’s literally Fox News. They put Tucker on nonstop.
I hope you see what you’re apologizing for.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:45 PM on October 15, 2021 [35 favorites]
OnTheLakeCastle, you nailed it, I've been saying the same for years.
If you are willing to vote with your wallet but not your paycheck you're part of the problem.
"I know I work for EvilCorp, but you have to understand, I'm personally very progressive, and I need this job to care for my family" as if other jobs don't exist or they couldn't take a fucking mild pay cut to work elsewhere and still hold a decent quality of life.
I remember during the Snowden saga, and the reveal of Room 641A running into a guy who worked for AT&T with the same attitude and he really couldn't handle being told he was part of the problem. Like, sorry, you work for a company that's giving the Bush admin carte blanche to tap all their communications at the source. You don't get to act like the work you do doesn't support that.
I bet he kept working for them, telling himself he was very progressive, and working at AT&T was just something he did for money.
Yeah well he can shove it up his ass because his work ended up funding One America News Network.
If you're working for fucking Evil, you're part of the problem.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:56 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
If you are willing to vote with your wallet but not your paycheck you're part of the problem.
"I know I work for EvilCorp, but you have to understand, I'm personally very progressive, and I need this job to care for my family" as if other jobs don't exist or they couldn't take a fucking mild pay cut to work elsewhere and still hold a decent quality of life.
I remember during the Snowden saga, and the reveal of Room 641A running into a guy who worked for AT&T with the same attitude and he really couldn't handle being told he was part of the problem. Like, sorry, you work for a company that's giving the Bush admin carte blanche to tap all their communications at the source. You don't get to act like the work you do doesn't support that.
I bet he kept working for them, telling himself he was very progressive, and working at AT&T was just something he did for money.
Yeah well he can shove it up his ass because his work ended up funding One America News Network.
If you're working for fucking Evil, you're part of the problem.
posted by deadaluspark at 10:56 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
Mod note: A couple deleted: an undescribed link to Amazon that is going to different products for different people (I'm getting eye drops; someone else got allergy treatments ... Amazon isn't great for linking without comment / description. Sometimes people get sent to a different Amazon site with different results, depending on location, and sometimes the original page just changes the product, etc.)
posted by taz (staff) at 12:17 AM on October 16, 2021
posted by taz (staff) at 12:17 AM on October 16, 2021
I read the article, and I think to Tufekci's credit she includes an academic whose polling shows that only 1/2 of unvaccinated people qualify as vaccine-resistant. So that would be an important, clear upper bound of influence because it would mean that all the damaging influence of Fox and the right wing has not been the major factor for 1/2 of all unvaccinated Americans.
posted by polymodus at 12:20 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 12:20 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
My friend works as a video editor at FOX. Prior to this gig he was working 4-5 freelance gigs at a time and not being able to pay rent. It's not that easy to find video editing jobs. I do agree that if he was really politically committed, he would quit, but nominally most of the people he knows who work behind the scenes at FOX identify as democrats and on the left of the political spectrum. Because at the end of the day it is a job in media, and that's who has jobs in media.
I don't want to derail this further, but this was a personal anecdote I thought was relevant to the discussion of why all those people in the FOX office are masked. Of course the convervative thought leaders are massively hypocritical, and they don't practice what they preach for the masses, but you'd be surprised how many people working behind the scenes at FOX are not believers in the FOX news messaging at all.
posted by subdee at 1:24 AM on October 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
I don't want to derail this further, but this was a personal anecdote I thought was relevant to the discussion of why all those people in the FOX office are masked. Of course the convervative thought leaders are massively hypocritical, and they don't practice what they preach for the masses, but you'd be surprised how many people working behind the scenes at FOX are not believers in the FOX news messaging at all.
posted by subdee at 1:24 AM on October 16, 2021 [7 favorites]
I suppose this is my fault though, instead of "progressive" I should have said "nominally identify as Democrats" which is a different sort of thing.
posted by subdee at 1:46 AM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by subdee at 1:46 AM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
Archive.org copy if you need to cross the paywall.
posted by doctornemo at 5:39 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 5:39 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
So, either people are lying, Civiq's respondents aren't representative of the US population, Civiq's weights are off, or Civiq's sampling methods are flawed. I would guess its a combination of the three. I find that much more likely than the CDC screwing up estimates of the US population when calculating vaccination rates.
It can be both. While I certainly wouldn't expect it to make a major dent except to localized vaccination rates, it doesn't appear that anyone was keeping any kind of firm numbers on how many vaccinations went to non-US-residents.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:09 AM on October 16, 2021
It can be both. While I certainly wouldn't expect it to make a major dent except to localized vaccination rates, it doesn't appear that anyone was keeping any kind of firm numbers on how many vaccinations went to non-US-residents.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:09 AM on October 16, 2021
Amazingly for the US, not only is the vaccine free at point of care, it doesn't actually require any documentation. You can get it without ID. You can get it even if you aren't a US resident. And you don't need an appointment. By the time I got my second dose in late May at a national retailer they were walking around the store asking random shoppers if they'd like a shot.
In some states there might be some confusion about this since early on when the US was still supply limited some states were requiring proof of residency, but even here in Florida that went away quickly.
Locally, they've been doing everything they can to get people shots, having clinics at places where homeless people sleep, at the airport, at food banks, pretty much everywhere there are people. If you wanted a vaccine or even just didn't mind getting one and you left the house it was kinda hard not to get one. If you couldn't leave the house, you could make a phone call and they'd send someone around.
It's not an issue of access, it's an issue of willingness.
posted by wierdo at 7:35 AM on October 16, 2021
In some states there might be some confusion about this since early on when the US was still supply limited some states were requiring proof of residency, but even here in Florida that went away quickly.
Locally, they've been doing everything they can to get people shots, having clinics at places where homeless people sleep, at the airport, at food banks, pretty much everywhere there are people. If you wanted a vaccine or even just didn't mind getting one and you left the house it was kinda hard not to get one. If you couldn't leave the house, you could make a phone call and they'd send someone around.
It's not an issue of access, it's an issue of willingness.
posted by wierdo at 7:35 AM on October 16, 2021
it doesn't actually require any documentation. You can get it without ID. You can get it even if you aren't a US resident. And you don't need an appointment.
Many of the commercial pharmacy chains do require an appointment, even if nobody is waiting. And as mentioned above, some of them (Walgreens in particular) push really hard for you to provide an insurance card, provide a credit card, provide ID, verify your address even though it's not required. . . . If it's not legal for them to provide these roadblocks it doesn't stop them.
In my area there are ostensibly non-pharmacy chain clinics but I've only seen them advertised by signs on the side of busy roads--it is not reasonable to expect people to stop whatever they were doing at that moment to try to drive around and find whatever location the clinic was referring to (they rarely list location). You can look up clinics at the local health department but in my area those have tapered off in frequency and variety of locations.
If you are not really persistent and knowledgeable about what is needed or not needed to get the vaccine then it is harder than you're making it out to be.
posted by Anonymous at 7:57 AM on October 16, 2021
Many of the commercial pharmacy chains do require an appointment, even if nobody is waiting. And as mentioned above, some of them (Walgreens in particular) push really hard for you to provide an insurance card, provide a credit card, provide ID, verify your address even though it's not required. . . . If it's not legal for them to provide these roadblocks it doesn't stop them.
In my area there are ostensibly non-pharmacy chain clinics but I've only seen them advertised by signs on the side of busy roads--it is not reasonable to expect people to stop whatever they were doing at that moment to try to drive around and find whatever location the clinic was referring to (they rarely list location). You can look up clinics at the local health department but in my area those have tapered off in frequency and variety of locations.
If you are not really persistent and knowledgeable about what is needed or not needed to get the vaccine then it is harder than you're making it out to be.
posted by Anonymous at 7:57 AM on October 16, 2021
Similarly to what xdvesper reports from Australia, the people who aren't getting their shots here are immigrants/refugees who may be suspicious of authorities, based on their previous experiences, or may be getting false information because they don't speak Danish. Here too, the healthcare system has been setting up local vaccine stations in shopping malls and libraries close to where people live and going door to door with information in several languages, and that has helped.
Homeless people were in one of the first categories of people to get the vaccine, along with people in nursing homes. But some of them have refused to receive the vaccine. Typically, homeless people here suffer from some mental health issues.
The ID thing baffled me, as a person who is used to trusting the health authorities. We have to show ID when we get vaccinated, which is evidently for the purpose of monitoring the outreach, which is valuable and relevant information. But I can see why it doesn't work that way in the US. And after googling a bit, I can see there is no access to the vaccine for illegal immigrants here at all. (There are less than 20.000 illegal illegal immigrants here, but still, they are very vulnerable and should have the option).
posted by mumimor at 8:07 AM on October 16, 2021
Homeless people were in one of the first categories of people to get the vaccine, along with people in nursing homes. But some of them have refused to receive the vaccine. Typically, homeless people here suffer from some mental health issues.
The ID thing baffled me, as a person who is used to trusting the health authorities. We have to show ID when we get vaccinated, which is evidently for the purpose of monitoring the outreach, which is valuable and relevant information. But I can see why it doesn't work that way in the US. And after googling a bit, I can see there is no access to the vaccine for illegal immigrants here at all. (There are less than 20.000 illegal illegal immigrants here, but still, they are very vulnerable and should have the option).
posted by mumimor at 8:07 AM on October 16, 2021
Perhaps where you are. Here they aren't requiring appointments. You can make an appointment, but if you don't have one they'll still give you a shot. Perhaps it's changed recently now that it's flu shot season, but when I was at Walgreens a little over a month ago it was "fill out form, get shot," just like it is at Walmart, Publix, Winn Dixie, etc, all of whom have big signs saying something along the lines of "WALK-IN COVID-19 SHOTS AVAILABLE HERE". It's been a minute since I've been at a CVS, so I'm relying on what I've been told about how things are working there.
posted by wierdo at 8:09 AM on October 16, 2021
posted by wierdo at 8:09 AM on October 16, 2021
That’s great for your area, weirdo. Assuming that your experience is universal is rarely helpful, however. It is especially unproductive when people already described different situations before you even made your first comment on the topic.
posted by eviemath at 8:21 AM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by eviemath at 8:21 AM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Slight derail but relevant and needed nonetheless: people aren't illegal. Please use the term "undocumented immigrant" if you must refer to an individual who does not have legal authorization to live in a country.
(References and more information found at Drop the I-Word.)
posted by cooker girl at 8:56 AM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
(References and more information found at Drop the I-Word.)
posted by cooker girl at 8:56 AM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
My wife does contact tracing and casework for the next county over and has some interesting stories.
For example:
-nearly every Asian immigrant is vaccinated, and many see not getting the shot as incomprehensible
-several New Age/wellness folks insisting they couldn't catch COVID because they were too healthy/ate special foods/crystals/etc.
-parents furious at everyone (county, school board, teachers, people on the street) when their kids caught COVID or were COVID-adjacent
-lots of staff facing burnout
posted by doctornemo at 9:49 AM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
For example:
-nearly every Asian immigrant is vaccinated, and many see not getting the shot as incomprehensible
-several New Age/wellness folks insisting they couldn't catch COVID because they were too healthy/ate special foods/crystals/etc.
-parents furious at everyone (county, school board, teachers, people on the street) when their kids caught COVID or were COVID-adjacent
-lots of staff facing burnout
posted by doctornemo at 9:49 AM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
you'd be surprised how many people working behind the scenes at FOX are not believers in the FOX news messaging at all.
A clear ethical summary of this position from the movie Clerks.
Regardless of what they believe, their actions facilitate the spread of misinformation and fascist propaganda, therefore they are culpable.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:20 AM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
A clear ethical summary of this position from the movie Clerks.
Regardless of what they believe, their actions facilitate the spread of misinformation and fascist propaganda, therefore they are culpable.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:20 AM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
> The other two are New-Age-y/all-natural/woo-woo 40+ white women who reject modern medicine/science.
I only know four anti-vaxxers personally*; three of them fit this profile, and the fourth is a man who is going out with one of them.
* fortunately none of them are friends
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:53 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I only know four anti-vaxxers personally*; three of them fit this profile, and the fourth is a man who is going out with one of them.
* fortunately none of them are friends
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:53 AM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I honestly thought "fear of needles" was bunkum. But I just learned a close friend of mine is terrified of them. She has previously gotten all of her shots from her doctor, who would see her in a private office and deal with her panic and breakdowns. Now she's changed jobs and changed health insurance, and under the new regime she can only get the flu shot in a drugstore. She needs one, she wants one, and she can't do it. She knows it is not rational, but she has tried and every time she has a panic attack. It doesn't help that one of the pharmacies has, I kid you not, the vaccination clinic chairs set up in the middle of the aisle so someone is reaching over you for the cough syrup as you get your shot. (It's a low-income area, so none of those posh booths that the swanky CVS has!)
Fear of needles has never been a thing for me, and if I hadn't been through this with my friend I wouldn't believe that it exists. And apparently, per her last doctor, she is nowhere NEAR one of his worst cases. And that makes me wonder how many people there are who don't have a regular doctor and don't want to get a vaccination shot in the middle of the cough syrup aisle.
posted by rednikki at 1:27 PM on October 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
Fear of needles has never been a thing for me, and if I hadn't been through this with my friend I wouldn't believe that it exists. And apparently, per her last doctor, she is nowhere NEAR one of his worst cases. And that makes me wonder how many people there are who don't have a regular doctor and don't want to get a vaccination shot in the middle of the cough syrup aisle.
posted by rednikki at 1:27 PM on October 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
-nearly every Asian immigrant is vaccinated, and many see not getting the shot as incomprehensible
The LES/Chinatown ZIP code is among the most vaccinated in NYC (especially if you exclude places like Midtown West where almost no one lives), despite being poorer than average and (obviously) full of seniors with limited English skills. It's really been a success story, and I wish someone would dig into that instead of giving another three whiners a platform and validation.
posted by praemunire at 1:44 PM on October 16, 2021 [13 favorites]
The LES/Chinatown ZIP code is among the most vaccinated in NYC (especially if you exclude places like Midtown West where almost no one lives), despite being poorer than average and (obviously) full of seniors with limited English skills. It's really been a success story, and I wish someone would dig into that instead of giving another three whiners a platform and validation.
posted by praemunire at 1:44 PM on October 16, 2021 [13 favorites]
under the new regime she can only get the flu shot in a drugstore
Or at any public vaccination site. Her insurance can't make her go to CVS. You don't have to tell them you have any insurance at all to get the shot at a city/state/federal site.
I don't know where you guys are, and they may not be physically accessible to her, and the public sites aren't exactly fancy, but at least no one's reaching over you for cough syrup while you're getting your shot. Also if she can see a doctor at all, they might well be willing to write her a script for a couple Xanax she can take in the run-up.
(Sorry if you already know all this. I would just hate to see her get sick because she didn't realize.)
posted by praemunire at 1:51 PM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
Or at any public vaccination site. Her insurance can't make her go to CVS. You don't have to tell them you have any insurance at all to get the shot at a city/state/federal site.
I don't know where you guys are, and they may not be physically accessible to her, and the public sites aren't exactly fancy, but at least no one's reaching over you for cough syrup while you're getting your shot. Also if she can see a doctor at all, they might well be willing to write her a script for a couple Xanax she can take in the run-up.
(Sorry if you already know all this. I would just hate to see her get sick because she didn't realize.)
posted by praemunire at 1:51 PM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
especially if you exclude places like Midtown West where almost no one lives
Hey! I actually know a lot of people who live in Midtown West and they're also all Asian immigrants (but the yuppie kind, from Canada).
Unsurprisingly, in line with the official statistics, they are all vaccinated.
posted by airmail at 2:01 PM on October 16, 2021
Hey! I actually know a lot of people who live in Midtown West and they're also all Asian immigrants (but the yuppie kind, from Canada).
Unsurprisingly, in line with the official statistics, they are all vaccinated.
posted by airmail at 2:01 PM on October 16, 2021
I'm in New Jersey, and now there are signs advertising the vaccines at some of the big drug store chains and big chain supermarkets, but it's all very different from state to state.
Even to get rapid-tested at the high school where I work, which we are offering per the governor's mandate, you have to register in advance on the company's website, and the website asks for your insurance info. If you push past without providing it, someone working for the company calls you for "other documentation". Partially it's done to verify that everyone signing up is 18 or the parent of a minor child bc of the political pushback from parents who don't want anything happening to their kids without their permission, even something noninvasive like a swab up their noses.
OTOH, when I visited Alaska this summer it was a completely different story, I have never seen so many vaccination sites. There were signs in the airport and outside every drug store, supermarket and pharmacy, and urgent care site advertising free vaccines to anyone who wanted one.
posted by subdee at 2:54 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Even to get rapid-tested at the high school where I work, which we are offering per the governor's mandate, you have to register in advance on the company's website, and the website asks for your insurance info. If you push past without providing it, someone working for the company calls you for "other documentation". Partially it's done to verify that everyone signing up is 18 or the parent of a minor child bc of the political pushback from parents who don't want anything happening to their kids without their permission, even something noninvasive like a swab up their noses.
OTOH, when I visited Alaska this summer it was a completely different story, I have never seen so many vaccination sites. There were signs in the airport and outside every drug store, supermarket and pharmacy, and urgent care site advertising free vaccines to anyone who wanted one.
posted by subdee at 2:54 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Hey! I actually know a lot of people who live in Midtown West
My condolences to your friends. ;)
posted by praemunire at 3:25 PM on October 16, 2021
My condolences to your friends. ;)
posted by praemunire at 3:25 PM on October 16, 2021
There's a perfectly ethical way to be a progressive and work at Fox News. The only catch is it involves working to earn their trust for just long enough that you can do things to hurt the company, which are likely to get you fired at the very least. If they're not doing that, they're either not really progressive, or they've completely sold out their principles for a paycheck.
posted by Green Winnebago at 3:43 PM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Green Winnebago at 3:43 PM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
OTOH, when I visited Alaska this summer it was a completely different story, I have never seen so many vaccination sites. There were signs in the airport and outside every drug store, supermarket and pharmacy, and urgent care site advertising free vaccines to anyone who wanted one.
Yup. They screwed up the messaging and registration early on and then…fixed it! When I signed my parents up for a shot in February it was a total nightmare, and by the time I got mine in early March they had removed most of the frustrating barriers that had prevented my usually pretty savvy elderly parents from managing on their own. And most of the signs I see are careful to use the word FREE and WALK-IN. We also likely have fewer uninsured than some other states have because of the large number of people eligible to participate in the Native health care system.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t f*cking matter because we’re a red state a with Trump-lite governor who is more concerned about his future career on Fox News than he is about saving people’s lives. As of July we also have a covid-denier as mayor of the state’s largest city and since Delta hit we have achieved covid hell; we have been at the top of the US for per-capita rates for weeks now, with no mitigation strategies at all besides masks in some schools + cross your fingers and pray.
Delta + low-mediocre vaccine uptake (mah FREEDOM!) + no vaccine mandates + no masks+ an isolated population means that the health care system has been absolutely upended and there’s no one coming to save us. We’re a ghost ship of a state drifting in highly diseased red seas.
I have read the article. I can tell you that here, vaccination resistance appears to be almost entirely a partisanship problem. I think people are not committed enough to the bit to lose their jobs over it, or to lose access to gyms/restaurants/flights over it, but no one here is going to ask them to do that. A domestic flight vaccine requirement would make a huge difference here…or, Costco could save a lot of lives if they mandated vaccines for entry, no one here is going to give up Costco!
It’s scary and it sucks. I suppose at some point it has to burn through most of the state’s unvaccinated population and slow down, or maybe the unenforced toothless mask mandate the Anchorage Assembly just instituted over the mayor’s veto will help some but so far we’ve only just plateaued.
posted by charmedimsure at 3:43 PM on October 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
Are we going to continue with the "moral jobs" derail? If not, will someone start a thread where we can have a full and frank discussion on that particular subject?
posted by No Robots at 3:47 PM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by No Robots at 3:47 PM on October 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
Works at Fox...
A clear ethical summary of this position from the movie Clerks
Sorry for further derail, but I do think ethical chain of custody is also relevant in the Covid politics fight...what about this angle. Ie, how directly do you have to be involved in something bad for you to be culpable?
I'm not coming out for Fox employees here, but what about someone who works for a subcontractor of Fox? What if you work for the place they buy toilet paper from?
Sure you don't watch Fox news, but what if you buy romance novels from one of their publishing subsidiaries? Everyone needs food or at least fuel/electricity from some corp that is total scum. Where do you draw the line?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:25 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
A clear ethical summary of this position from the movie Clerks
Sorry for further derail, but I do think ethical chain of custody is also relevant in the Covid politics fight...what about this angle. Ie, how directly do you have to be involved in something bad for you to be culpable?
I'm not coming out for Fox employees here, but what about someone who works for a subcontractor of Fox? What if you work for the place they buy toilet paper from?
Sure you don't watch Fox news, but what if you buy romance novels from one of their publishing subsidiaries? Everyone needs food or at least fuel/electricity from some corp that is total scum. Where do you draw the line?
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:25 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Where do you draw the line?
I think we officially need a FPP for this derail...
However, in response to this question, I would say it's quite like the statement "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism." To an extent, we are all culpable, and sadly yes, making sure FOX News has working toilets so Tucker Carlson can eat his own shit out of the pristine golden bowl in his private bathroom actually does materially support their ability to function, even if it is in a very small way.
IBM made punch cards, they didn't necessarily help the Nazi's figure out how to use them to document Jews, but god damn it, the Nazi's did use them to document Jews and so IBM materially helped them.
I'm not saying these people are villains, but I do think they're certainly misguided if they think their labor isn't helping the rot of pure evil grow as it feeds on the festering carcass of our society.
I really don't want to have to dig up links related to this for an FPP but I will if nobody else does, I guess.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:35 PM on October 16, 2021
I think we officially need a FPP for this derail...
However, in response to this question, I would say it's quite like the statement "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism." To an extent, we are all culpable, and sadly yes, making sure FOX News has working toilets so Tucker Carlson can eat his own shit out of the pristine golden bowl in his private bathroom actually does materially support their ability to function, even if it is in a very small way.
IBM made punch cards, they didn't necessarily help the Nazi's figure out how to use them to document Jews, but god damn it, the Nazi's did use them to document Jews and so IBM materially helped them.
I'm not saying these people are villains, but I do think they're certainly misguided if they think their labor isn't helping the rot of pure evil grow as it feeds on the festering carcass of our society.
I really don't want to have to dig up links related to this for an FPP but I will if nobody else does, I guess.
posted by deadaluspark at 5:35 PM on October 16, 2021
A friend works at FOX news... The majority of people who work behind the scenes at FOX are progressive, they work there and not somewhere else for the paycheck.
This is likely the most amusing statement I've ever read on Metafilter. Thanks for the laugh.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:51 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
This is likely the most amusing statement I've ever read on Metafilter. Thanks for the laugh.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:51 PM on October 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
SacBee: "I'll never forgive them": Democrats see an opening with vaccinated, frustrated Republicans
...in her focus groups, vaccinated Republicans were far angrier than Democrats at unvaccinated Americans, even arguing for more punitive measures to be taken against them.posted by Rash at 7:52 PM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
"Republicans would say if you go to the emergency room, you don't get treated, you get to the back of the line," Lake said. "And when we would push them and say that would mean people dying on the doors of hospital emergency rooms. And they'd say, well, they made that choice."
Asian immigrants are not exactly collectivist though, and every single Asian family friend I've met who masked early and got vaccinated did those things because they respect Western medical science, because they've already taken flu shots in the past, and because they didn't want to get the COVID. Some of my retired age Asian family friends are terrified of covid. Some might add, as an afterthought, that antivaxxers seem very selfish, but that wasn't central to their own very individual motivation to do so.
posted by polymodus at 8:58 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by polymodus at 8:58 PM on October 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure what saying it would really achieve. A fish doesn't know its wet, etc. Asian cultures (at the risk of being reductive) are mostly collectivistic in nature. Individuals are embedded within their group identity, and the notion of a separate, autonomous self is deemphasized. Self sacrifice for the good of the community is a given assumption: the fact that the vaccine may have risks to an individual can be easily overlooked if it broadly benefits the group - a no brainer.
(a) This is super-reductionist. I mean. Really.
(b) If you think some cultural vibes just magically caused often semi-housebound or impoverished seniors with limited English proficiency to desire to and then successfully navigate a system in no way geared towards them, please stay out of any kind of policy or governance work of any kind. I am sure a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to achieve these numbers. I would like to know more about what they did, to figure out what can be generalized to try to reach other disadvantaged populations.
posted by praemunire at 9:06 PM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
(a) This is super-reductionist. I mean. Really.
(b) If you think some cultural vibes just magically caused often semi-housebound or impoverished seniors with limited English proficiency to desire to and then successfully navigate a system in no way geared towards them, please stay out of any kind of policy or governance work of any kind. I am sure a lot of people put in a lot of hard work to achieve these numbers. I would like to know more about what they did, to figure out what can be generalized to try to reach other disadvantaged populations.
posted by praemunire at 9:06 PM on October 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
While I somewhat expected it, it's still somewhat disheartening to see New Age types spouting anti-science factoids on why they won't get vaccinated, and spreading that to their family members. These same people are basically anti-vaxxers with a cloak of progressive politics. In a way they are simply conspiracy nuts on the liberal side of society fully armed with an array of nightmarish scenarios should you go down that conversational rabbit hole.
One person I know who seems fairly rational is completely against being vaccinated and spouts marginally accurate factoids all of which add up to motivated reasoning. There's no science there, just this person's list of fear bullet points. Refuting any one of them is fruitless, they have countless other rationalizations lined up. They are forced by their workplace to be vaccinated or quit, so apparently this is an existential crisis they are cooperating with at the point of losing their income.
posted by diode at 7:59 AM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
One person I know who seems fairly rational is completely against being vaccinated and spouts marginally accurate factoids all of which add up to motivated reasoning. There's no science there, just this person's list of fear bullet points. Refuting any one of them is fruitless, they have countless other rationalizations lined up. They are forced by their workplace to be vaccinated or quit, so apparently this is an existential crisis they are cooperating with at the point of losing their income.
posted by diode at 7:59 AM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
OTOH, when I visited Alaska this summer it was a completely different story, I have never seen so many vaccination sites. There were signs in the airport and outside every drug store, supermarket and pharmacy, and urgent care site advertising free vaccines to anyone who wanted one.
I half-heard a tv commercial the other day about travel in Alaska and one of the things being advertised was vaccine access for anyone, regardless of state of residence. Like, "Come to Alaska! Beautiful scenery! Stuff to do! You can get a Covid vaccine no matter what your home state is!" sort of thing.
posted by cooker girl at 8:25 AM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
I half-heard a tv commercial the other day about travel in Alaska and one of the things being advertised was vaccine access for anyone, regardless of state of residence. Like, "Come to Alaska! Beautiful scenery! Stuff to do! You can get a Covid vaccine no matter what your home state is!" sort of thing.
posted by cooker girl at 8:25 AM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
Mod note: One deleted for stereotyping, but responses to it left.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:29 AM on October 17, 2021
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:29 AM on October 17, 2021
> The test was of course free, so why the insurance card?
The money has to come from somewhere. If the patient has medical insurance, the insurance company pays. If they don't have insurance, the state pays. (This varies regionally, of course.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:32 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
The money has to come from somewhere. If the patient has medical insurance, the insurance company pays. If they don't have insurance, the state pays. (This varies regionally, of course.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:32 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
My coworkers and I are all required to be vaccinated against COVID. This seems to have taken many of them by surprise; more than one of them isn't on the schedule next week, as they're not fully vaccinated yet and the mandate kicks in on Monday. They're not avoiding the shot, but they just hadn't gotten around to it. I don't know if they think that COVID is something that happens to other people, or what -- I haven't found a diplomatic way to say "HOW THE FUCK DID YOU NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?!?" yet.
I imagine a similar thing will happen next month, when we all need to have gotten our flu shots.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:35 PM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
I imagine a similar thing will happen next month, when we all need to have gotten our flu shots.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:35 PM on October 17, 2021 [5 favorites]
"...she brought up polio and her memories of people she'd known who had had polio, and what a huge deal it was when the polio vaccine became available. Younger people don't have that lived experience (thanks, largely, to the effectiveness of mandated vaccinations for (...)" -- posted by kristi at 5:29 PM on October 15There's this phenomenon I've thought about for the past 20 years that has to do with systems and collective/individual memory, and I don't know if there is a name for this, but it's a sort of blindness to problems of that past that have been solved "just enough" (or problems of the now that haven't become apparent to enough people to justify action - e.g. hitting the tipping point threshold).
I think about things like acid rain and smog. Pollution. How I remember growing up in the 80s hearing about acid rain and the Cuyahoga River on fire...
And this isn't to say there still aren't visible environmental problems, the most assuredly are, but with the manufacturing having moved to China and other countries, smog has been reduced to a point that a lot of people don't think of it like they used (again - not saying it's not a problem).
I can't remember what the other issue that brought this to mind for me was, but I had one other example before COVID.
This quote above is a perfect example. Humanity has created a solution that is "good enough" it solves 80% of the problem (I'm throwing 80% out here because of the 80/20 rule). There's a lingering effect but because *most* of the time the problem doesn't occur, people move on and pretend there is no long a problem.
I suppose this is related to the "Black Swan hypothesis" of Taleb, if not exactly the same thing.
And I think this is driven by personal/localized experience of a social/global phenomenon. Out of sight/out of mind. COVID is a great example. Along with other logical fallacies ("I'm young and healthy I can't get it"), and even though it is deadly and ravaging, there are plenty of people who do get it and survive, and unless you know someone who had a severe enough case personally (esp. one suffering "long covid"), it's real easy to pretend this isn't happening. To say nothing of the self-justifications we are so prone to do to justify our previous beliefs... I guess my point is, there's a tipping point and I thought, I really thought that if people didn't get vaccinated we'd reach that point, and we have hundreds of thousands of Americans dead.
Admittedly I thought this would be much higher but enough people DID get vaccinated. And that helped reduce the deaths. And now... This is, I guess, the point where those who may have done something once they "personally" experienced it ("I don't know none of them gays... oh you're gay Randy? Well now I support the gays" kinda thing).
Invisibility of a collective/large scale thing that on a local scale doesn't appear to exist. Whether through silence and fear (in the case of gay/trans people in the closet), through scientific progress (polio/pollution) or merely the beginning of the phenomenon and the full scale of the problem hasn't even started (early COVID before becoming a pandemic and our slowness to react as a nation & most especially, "our" (*cough* Manchin *cough*)'s reluctance to do something about Climate Change, because we perceive the effects as localized "weather" and "one off events" and incapable or unwilling to look at the statistics in the aggregate of the system.
Hubris? Local-Centrism? The "Think Globablly, Act Locally" may even somewhat have a link to this idea.
But as a phenomenon, I'm not quite sure I've read anything that has a word for this lack of will to invisible reality (but likewise the force of will applied to invisible unreality - e.g. conspiracy theories and conjectures to avoid dealing with the harsh realities) - which then of course goes into hubris (I'm young and can't get it) and attribution errors ("it's shadowy cabal of x" (and of course, we know who gets to play the role of x every single fucking time in these assholes views)) - we aren't willing and able to accept psychologically collective acts of happening and need to attribute motive, where there often is none.
But mostly the point isn't about errors of category and this local/global & statistical ... blindness? That involves a tipping point where people are unlikely to act unless they perceive it affecting them personally. What drives that?
It feels... innate and much deeper than some culture-based conspiratorial thinking or belief in ones own personal immortality... Something that may go back long ago to the immediate survival needs. In fact, it almost feels like it could be tied into how capitalists focus on short term gain at the expense of long term profit. Each company for itself, each entity for itself, screw the others, here and now. not there and then.
(And don't get me started on the delusion of "we're doing this for the kids" lunacy that these short sighted, self centered individuals whose core ideology has nothing to do with "the kids" and everything to do with the "freedom for my own ass").
Anybody know any names for this phenomenon? Shortsightedness and anthropo-centric (loco-individuo-centric thinking), non-systems-thinking. Immediate-thinking?
posted by symbioid at 5:25 PM on October 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
The LES/Chinatown ZIP code is among the most vaccinated in NYC (especially if you exclude places like Midtown West where almost no one lives), despite being poorer than average and (obviously) full of seniors with limited English skills. It's really been a success story, and I wish someone would dig into that instead of giving another three whiners a platform and validation.
Anyone Chinese or Chinese-adjacent not only remembers SARS Episode 1, they were reading COVID-19 horror news months before everyone else was.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 7:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
Anyone Chinese or Chinese-adjacent not only remembers SARS Episode 1, they were reading COVID-19 horror news months before everyone else was.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 7:13 AM on October 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
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Or...it demonstrates that "health and safety concerns about the vaccine itself" aren't the driver they're self-reported to be. People above 65 know they're at much greater risk and so they've protected themselves. (Also, the ones living in group facilities have had the vaccine pushed hard on them when they're already more dependent and may have watched others in the facility die.) The exact same person 20 years younger blusters on about how they don't know long-term effects, etc., but it's really that they don't think they're at much risk and they don't give a crap about other people. (This isn't misinformation, in that an otherwise healthy 45-year-old is still probably not going to die of COVID, although he may still underestimate the risk a bit numerically.) So much of right-wing ideology these days is really just a nominal belief standing in for the true "fuck those Others."
It's a complex phenomenon, though.
posted by praemunire at 3:13 PM on October 15, 2021 [53 favorites]