10 questions for you and your (un)vaccinated friends
How to think about vaccination as a scout? Simple analysis with 3 pictures.
Let’s hope the worse of the Covid disaster is over. And, did you get vaccinated?
Couple of friends that I respect did not. I am not going to lie, it irritated me, even if I was convincing myself that it should be a free choice. I recently sat with one of them and intentionally avoided discussing the topic.
Walking coming home I was still sort of angry, so I figured, ok, let me think this through like a scout as opposed to a soldier. How did I even get into a situation that I felt irritated by someone’s choices? How and when did I become part of a ‘team’?
Reasons are complex and would deserve separate essays, but I am simplifying it in 3 pictures before my big vaccination questions bang. 💥
It all started with the Internet.
First: On the Internet, nobody knows you are a dog.
Early internet adopters dreamed of an extremely bright, free, egalitarian, democratic and decentralised future (crypto fans, this probably rings a bell, no?). The Internet, a force of good, was then gradually centralised and commercialised. With the advent of Web 2.0 and later Facebook, YouTube & Co (=‘Facebook’) it also became partially de-anonymised. Back in the days we ran an online newspaper (RIP Bajta!) and I believed that without anonymity, the level of the online discourse would improve. Lord have mercy and Allah too. I was so wrong.
Second: On ‘Facebook’, everybody knows you are a dog.
Instead of online democratic utopia ‘Facebook’ made us see all the loonies and weirdos, because they are happy to publish their deranged opinions. In other words, before ‘Facebook’ it was harder to know how crazy some people are. And of course, loonies, Nazis and other conspiracy peeps were able to easily find their ‘Facebook’ group, because on ‘Facebook’, everybody knows you are a flat-earther. Access to lunacy has never been easier.
Third: Algorithms amplified polarisation.
If you add algorithms to boredom and perma-scroll functionality, you will get excitement when someone in politics “says it as it is.” For some it was Trump, for others Sanders, Le Pen, Varoufakis, Bolso or some other character that was able to rally the algos, pardon, people and their likes. The more extreme, the better. Algos helped push people’s opinions further apart. For example, the latest chart I could find from the US says it all:
Pandemic in the world of algos
Covid was the first global disaster since the invention of the Internet, and ‘Facebook’ algos helped to amplify it. Nobody knew what will happen, but we still had a lot of fast thinkers and opinions. Locked down and bored we scrolled and liked.
The pandemic was a great opportunity for politicians to demonstrate how good they are in politics, the art of the possible. Health vs economy. Sweden vs continental Europe. Masks vs no-masks. Open schools vs closed schools. A lot of opportunity to have an opinion and for a retweet.
Finally we got to the last BOSS 👾, vaccinated vs unvaccinated. We had discussions and “discussions,” which include loonies screaming “magnetic 5G tracking” and drawing weird charts. These need institutional help and are not in scope of this piece.
Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated
Discussion about vaccines goes well with covid measures, and we need to be fair: after the battle, everyone is a general. It is easy to say what was right today, but imagine it is March 2020 and you have no idea what is about to happen:
If you had the power, which measures would you take? What sorts of lockdowns, if any?
How would you balance health and economy?
If you had no real research and data available, how would you deal with different opinions of scientists/doctors with different risk appetites?
Now go a level further; imagine you do not know who you are. You might be old, young, seriously ill, cancer patient, rich country, poor country, healthy, small business owner, virologist, politician before elections: would you do the same?
It is hard. And we need to appreciate it when judging decisions made.
💥Finally, the questions bang!
Disclosure: I got 3 shots, plus corona at the end and you know my prior bias from the intro. The list is by no means complete and if you want to submit any additional question, please do (one for each side).
Questions for the vaccinated:
Can you understand that some people are afraid of the vaccines the same way that someone else is afraid of flying?
How would you feel if you were extremely careful (wearing masks, getting tested), but still getting blamed to be spreading the virus?
Based on the facts of today, will you get the 4th dose if it gets recommended? No? Because you recovered? Because it is mild? What about doing it to protect the others?
Do you still wear a mask even if not mandatory? If not, isn't this irresponsible to others?
Did you get vaccinated (boostered) just to keep your freedom or did you do it to protect others?
Are there any arguments of the anti-vaccine ‘team’ you agree with? How many do you know?
Did you at any point double check and question the data you were getting served from your ‘team’?
Questions for the unvaccinated:
Would you have the same opinion of the vaccines if it would be mostly young people and babies dying/getting seriously ill?
Would you have the same opinion of the vaccines if your chance of dying/getting seriously ill would be 20-30%? Which % would be a threshold for you?
Have you ever thought about what would happen if nobody wanted to get vaccinated?
If you said mRNA and vector vaccines are the ones you do not trust, because they were developed too fast, did you get the ‘inactivated’ vaccine?
If there is a new and deadlier wave and vaccines are again a pre-requisite, will you take it? Why not?
Are there any arguments of the pro-vaccine ‘team’ you agree with? How many do you know?
Did you at any point double check and question the data you were getting served from your ‘team’?
We are close to summer in Europe and nobody cares about Covid anymore because we got lucky with Omicron. Besides, hypothetical questions are easy to dismiss. But maybe if we’d discuss or think about them more, we’d get closer and less angry.
At least they helped me a bit. What about you?
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Interesting post, and a confronting list of questions. However... let me begin what annoyed me most in the country I am from (but now not live anymore, which has nothing to do with corona). We, like many other EU countries, have a state vaccination programme. A few years ago, there was a measels outbreak. A measels vaccination was part of the state programme. It were mostly migrants from the countries around the Mediterranean Sea that were now being infected and spreading. Many people were calling for schools to have a measels vaccination as a prerequisite for children to go to school. Many of these same people then calling for a vaccination, are now against it. That annoys me deeply. But it also shows me there is something else altogether that drives this. I think it's more a lack of trust for the government, amplified by the echo-chamber effect of social media and school yards in rural towns. Wait, no, school yards, period. We all know that in "The West" people live, and especially send their children to school, in mono-cultural clusters, even in cities. A list of opposing questions might not be the thing that bridged the gap between the (un)vaccinated. Maybe we should reduce it to one question for both sides: what worries you most?
Everyone has its own answers to the questions you mention in the post…. It is probably hard to say what really needs to be done!
Went to China before vacation in Germany was available for everyone, got vaccinated then in China… need to do a buster shot still - so my own opinion is obviously „pro“
And I strongly believe that a vaccination helps - if you are able to get it! If not - everyone else shall get it!
„Vaccination is only another business!“ - maybe… but I still believe in humanity.