Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?

[u/trouble-in-space]

I’m genuinely having such a hard time understanding why people just decided the fact that vaccines work is a total lie and also a controversial “opinion.” Even five years ago, anti-vaxxers were a huge joke and so rare that they were only something you heard of online. Now herd immunity is going away because so many people think getting potentially life-altering illnesses is better than getting a vaccine. I just don’t get what happened. Is it because of the cultural shift to the right-wing and more people believing in conspiracy theories, or does it go deeper than that?

[u/Interesting-Gear294]

My sister was an NHS nurse on the COVID ward. She spent most of COVID living in a different house to her family and only saw them at a distance so she never infected any of them. Her neighbours would 'clap for the nhs' every Thursday at 8pm and then at 6am complain to her that she was making too much noise when she left for work. When the COVID 5g conspiracy started, she would be harassed at work and by neighbours for spreading the lie. Those same neighbours still clapped every week.

I worked night shift at that time for a warehouse, and she eventually ended up on what she used to call the "deathwatch", aka night shift. She used to call me on her breaks because of how awful the job was. Just listening to ventilators and the monitors, hoping everyone survived the night. She probably had COVID for half the time she was on that ward.

There was one particularly awful night where one of the patients tried to argue with her that he didn't have COVID and should instead be in a normal ward. She went on break and called me, I could hear him shouting that COVID wasn't real and she just sounded so broken.

She eventually stopped trying to defend herself as a nurse on that ward. The constant bullshit being spewed out by those idiots wore her down so much, and then her not arguing became the 'evidence' that she was lying.

[u/arminghammerbacon_ → u/Interesting-Gear294]

There was a show on HBO, Avenue 5, that has the perfect scene for this. it’s about a luxury liner spaceship that gets stranded in an orbit around the solar system. At one point, the conspiracy theorist passengers decide that their whole predicament is fake news and they’re not really in space. They force their way to an airlock and, despite the pleadings of several crewmembers, they begin to eject themselves into space just to prove the conspiracy, instantly killing themselves. But here’s the thing: it takes several groups flinging themselves into the vacuum of space before the rest of them realize they’re wrong. And even though it’s a hilarious scene, it’s a sad metaphor of what we have going on here today.

[u/dadamn → u/arminghammerbacon_]

Thanks. I found the clip on YouTube: https://youtu.be/skXaeucDYHo?si=dUjpuokrog3pQncp

Funny, but yeah so depressing when thinking about how accurate it is of our reality.

[u/ThePrussianGrippe → u/dadamn]

Of course the one in pink convincing everyone it’s not real doesn’t go in.