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

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

There are few groups so reviled in liberal circles as the anti-vaxxers. Seen as embarrassingly anti-science and anti-social to boot, the popular anti-vaxxer archetype is a shrill, loudly wrong grifter straight out of YouTube Medical School. They are not only uninformed, but dangerous. And their specific brand of ignorance invites a mocking condescension from those of us who self-identify as “educated” and “pro-science.”

There’s one big problem with liberal media outlets, individuals and institutions expressing this disdain today: they have, themselves, adopted many foundational beliefs of the anti-vax movement without even realizing it. While they express continued appreciation for vaccines, their underlying ideas about immune systems, illness, herd immunity, and the social value of public health have all aligned with anti-vaxxer ideology. I’ll unpack each of these foundational beliefs individually, but first I’d like to address why this has happened.

After the release and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, world governments, rather than waiting to see what sort of immunity these vaccines would produce in the long-term (would it be durable? How quickly would the virus mutate? Would people get infected? How often would they get infected?) gambled on the so-called “vax and relax” strategy. They bet everything that the vaccines would significantly limit infection and exposure to the point that everyday life could resume without any long-term disruption to society. They unwound every other virus mitigation tactic on this poor assumption.

In 2020, the Republicans had wanted to pursue “herd immunity” at any cost- meaning a quick reopening, massive die off of “the weak”, followed by the resumption of business-as-usual once the public was exposed. In early 2021, the Democrats’ approach was also a “herd immunity” strategy- but one accomplished by vaccinating the public. The only problem is that we’ve since learned that we cannot achieve herd immunity to COVID- ever.

Herd immunity would mean long-term, durable protection from infection, like we have for viruses like measles, mumps, and rubella. This society-wide protection would then enable vulnerable people to rejoin society without constant risk of infection. But since reopening, COVID has circulated year-round at high levels and the population is continually getting reinfected. Both the Republican and Democratic strategies to achieve herd immunity were doomed from the start. There are a variety of biological reasons for this.

The problem is that we cannot achieve herd immunity to COVID- ever. Herd immunity would mean long-term, durable protection from infection, like we have for viruses like measles, mumps, and rubella. This society-wide protection would then enable vulnerable people to rejoin society without constant risk of infection. But since reopening, COVID has circulated year-round at high levels and the population is continually getting reinfected. Both the Republican and Democratic strategies to achieve herd immunity were doomed from the start.

Firstly, infection with COVID does not produce durable immunity. That means that the experts who claimed a single infection would mean immunity for life, or immunity for a significant period of time like a decade, were wrong. These experts- the overly optimistic ones- were the experts continually platformed by both our governments and our media. In fact, COVID immunity is measured in months, not a lifetime or decades or even years, for the average person.

Secondly, vaccination against COVID also does not produce durable immunity. The CDC’s own vaccine efficacy data shows how rapidly protection declines- yet this rapid waning has never been properly explained to the public. Studies have repeatedly found that COVID protection dwindles over the course of mere months. This VE (Vaccine Efficacy) study looking at hospitalization rates found that:

During the first 7–59 days after vaccination, compared with no vaccination, VE for receipt of a bivalent vaccine dose among adults aged ≥18 years was 62% (95% CI = 57%–67%) among adults without immunocompromising conditions and 28% (95% CI = 10%–42%) among adults with immunocompromising conditions. Among adults without immunocompromising conditions, VE declined to 24% (95% CI = 12%–33%) among those aged ≥18 years by 120–179 days after vaccination. VE was generally lower for adults with immunocompromising conditions.

In other words, a mere four months after receiving their first booster (so their third shot overall in the series), immunocompetent people’s protection from hospitalization with COVID was 24%. With three shots, only months out from their booster, they were 24% less likely to be hospitalized than a fully unvaccinated person. This is a significant percentage, and surely worth receiving a vaccine for- but it’s nowhere near the public’s perceived vaccine efficacy, which would be much closer to 100%.

That perceived efficacy- the idea that we are all well protected from serious outcomes of COVID in the long-term- is a perception that was deliberately promoted and cultivated by institutions that do not want to see any additional attention on pandemic control or COVID mitigation. “Vax and relax” as a strategy is less appealing when people understand how temporary and weak that protection really is.

Thirdly, COVID mutates around vaccine protection quickly. For example, upon their release, the Moderna shots were 92% effective against infection with the ancestral strain, but only 48% effective against infection with Omicron BA.1. Last year, a study looking at data from 2022-2023 found that children under 5 who received the bivalent boosters had an 80% reduction in risk of ER visits, whereas those who received the original series Moderna shots had only a 29% reduction in risk of ER visits. Studies continually find that new subvariants “escape neutralizing antibodies induced by both vaccination and infection”.

The mRNA vaccines were a great leap forward in vaccine technology because they can be quickly updated with new strains of COVID as they emerge. But “quickly” is still a matter of months, not minutes. And COVID keeps outpacing our ability to update the vaccines. In the winter of ‘22-23, we were encouraged to get bivalent vaccines that included both the original strain and Omicron BA.1. By the time people could get the shots, the currently dominant variant was XBB.1.5- a recombinant descendent of BA.2.

Similarly, this past winter we finally got the XBB-specific booster shots. By the time they were released, JN.1 was the dominant variant, a descendent of BA.2.86. Again, there is still efficacy associated with updated vaccines; it makes sense that a vaccine formulated for a strain that is genetically closer to the dominant one would protect better than the original vaccine. But the virus is still outpacing us. Additionally, thanks to (purposefully) poor communication about boosters, variants, and strains, most people do not understand why they need a booster, nor do they seek them out.

When politicians lost their gamble that we would achieve herd immunity to COVID, they didn’t admit they were wrong or explain that, without any mitigation, our “new normal” would be continual reinfection with a blood vessel, organ, immune system and brain damaging virus. Instead, they doubled down and worked to normalize this continual reinfection- and all the negative downstream outcomes that come along with it, like overwhelmed hospitals, record student and teacher absences, constant illness, record rates of worker sickness and long-term illness, re-emergence of controlled pathogens, dropping test scores, high excess deaths, and increasing heart attacks and strokes among younger people.

This normalization process relies on a few tactics. One is burying data, like refusing to test for COVID and failing to report on excess deaths. Another is misinformation: promoting false, pseudo-scientific explanations for the clear results of uncontrolled transmission we see all around us. This is the juncture at which the goals of COVID normalizers intersect with the goals of anti-vaxxers; both want to manufacture broad consent to destroy collective belief in public health. And this is the point at which their tactics, explanations and justifications become nearly identical. Since 2021, our institutions, with the help of our media watchdogs, have mainstreamed nearly every foundational belief of anti-vaxxers and brought them into ascendence over scientific reality. I’m going to explore each one below.

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #1:

  Viral and bacterial infections are good for the immune system

This has long been a foundational belief of anti-vaxxers. They claim that not only can vaccines harm the body, but that illness itself is a boon to health, training and building a hardy immune system. They insist that natural infection is important for the growth and development of children. Visit any anti-vaxxer facebook group; you’ll find parents boasting of their decisions to purposely expose their kids to chickenpox, tips on how to navigate measles, and collective back-patting for the “wisdom” of purposely sickening children.

The belief that illness makes us well is completely false and incredibly dangerous. It comes from the also-controversial Hygiene Hypothesis- the belief that exposure to certain microorganisms is an important part of the development of babies. Even were we to accept the hygiene hypothesis- which again, is itself debated, with a recent study finding lockdown-era babies have healthier microbiomes and fewer allergies - the microbes in question are healthy or neutral types of bacteria that occur in our environments and thrive in our guts; they do not equate to pathogenic viruses. There has never been any serious contention that a pathogen- meaning a microbe that is harmful to humans- would somehow be healthy for you. It is simply a complete fabrication.

However, liberal outlets adopted and adapted this anti-vaxxer belief in the glorious healthful effects of viral illness and laundered it to their audience of scientifically minded liberals. They did so because children became notably sicker after reopening. As parents began to question the levels of illness they were observing in their kids, media outlets and elected officials rushed to rebrand illness as a positive sign that kids’ immune systems are developing well. This brings us to:

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #2:

  Public health measures and disease mitigation harms people

As part of their push to handwave away record childhood illnesses and absences, the press also embraced the completely fabricated “immunity debt” idea. This is the idea that, because children were kept at home and/or wore masks, their immune systems were harmed. Their weak immune systems therefore have more trouble fighting off common childhood diseases- a phenomenon that will surely abate with time (but hasn’t yet, three years on).

Implicit in the claim that kids’ immune systems were harmed by masks is the idea that masks and quarantines- basic mitigation measures, in other words, are bad for your health. In fact, if people need pathogenic infections to build up their immune systems, any form of disease mitigation at all could be construed as negative for public health. This claim was first promoted by anti-vaxxers in Spring of 2020 and beyond; at the time, outlets corrected the misinformation, asserting that no, masks and isolation measures could not harm people’s health.

But as 2022 dragged on and the effects of continual COVID spread became apparent, our governments and media had only two options: clearly, something had changed since 2019. People were sicker. The two possible culprits- the only things that had dramatically changed- were the spread of COVID, and the adoption of COVID mitigations. Our institutions chose to throw mitigations under the bus, rather than admit that continual COVID spread was a mistake, a bad decision, and a social catastrophe. On to:

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #3:

  Public health shouldn’t pursue the elimination of pathogens

The fact that pathogens are harmful for humans underlies the entirety of modern public health. It is why mitigation has always been not only a goal, but in fact, the ultimate goal, of public health itself. The CDC itself was first founded as a malaria elimination project. HIV/AIDS, malaria, and TB projects worldwide openly pursue the goal of elimination, and they are never seen as irrational or extremist for doing so. Elimination was the goal of vaccination campaigns that all-but-eradicated polio and other common infections like diphtheria, typhoid, measles, mumps, and rubella in developed countries.

In the age of COVID, elimination has become a dirty word. Absurd labels like “Zero COVID extremists” came from the far-right, but this attitude toward those of us still advocating mitigations has been adopted by the press, Democrats, and the liberal public. No press outlet would label people advocating for the elimination of a deadly disease as a “Zero HIV extremist” or a “Zero measles extremist” or a “Zero cholera extremist”. That’s because it’s well understood that elimination is the highest goal of public health; once elimination is achieved, all the resources devoted to mitigation can be repurposed. It’s ultimately far cheaper to eliminate a disease than it is to attempt to continually mitigate and manage it; however, neither goal is now being pursued by our public health institutions in regard to SARS-COV-2. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any public health goal at all in regard to the spread of a highly infectious, highly disabling, incredibly disruptive and widespread airborne virus.

Instead, completely abandoning its public health obligations, our institutions have embraced the ideologically extremist, libertarian “Let it Rip” approach to COVID. In other words, zero attempts to mitigate, zero attempts to halt, zero attempts to eliminate, just a complete disease free-for-all. Normalizing this non-approach to disease to a science-embracing liberal audience required a ton of ideological messaging. From there it’s a short leap to:

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #4:

  Health is an individual choice, not a collective practice

Much has been made of anti-vaxxers refusal to understand that their choices impact others. Ok, yes, your kid may be fine if they contract measles- maybe. But even if your kid is fine, you’re contributing to community spread. Viral spread threatens herd immunity (to viruses like measles, where herd immunity is possible and was attained decades ago). Contributing to disease spread means that vulnerable people- people who cannot get vaccinated, do not mount an immune response to vaccination, and/or will die if infected, can no longer be safe and protected.

This reality is the crux of the criticism us pro-science folks lob at anti-vaxxers. You frame this decision as your individual choice, we point out, but your decision is affecting and harming the collective. It shouldn’t be your right to afflict harm on others because you think you will be okay.

Now that it’s clear COVID will require additional mitigations aside from vaccines alone, liberal institutions have adopted and mainstreamed the worldview that disease mitigation is a personal choice that must be left to the individual. If some people want to wear a mask, that’s fine, but I’m pretty sure I’m low risk for Long COVID- so why should I have to mask? This is exactly and precisely the same logic used by anti-vaxxers to justify their personal choices not to participate in protecting collective health. If other people want to mask- 24/7, amidst unmitigated COVID spread- that’s not any of my business! This bleeds directly into:

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #5:

  If vulnerable people are so weak, they should simply hide forever or die

One of the major things people seem to have memory-holed about the early pandemic is that mitigation measures, from day one, were first and foremost about protecting the vulnerable. Even in the earliest, pre-vaccine days, COVID infection was never highly deadly to young, healthy people. It was dangerous for the elderly, new babies, immunocompromised folks, folks with underlying conditions, and our decisions to collectively adopt mitigation measures were explicitly done to care for our vulnerable populations.

Now, people have been persuaded to not only ignore, but even openly despise vulnerable people. Defenses of refusals to mask often expressly state that “only vulnerable people” are dying from COVID- even though vulnerable people were always the ones dying from COVID. Our public figures like former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky commented that she’s “encouraged” those dying have underlying conditions, while just this past winter, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that “the vulnerable will fall by the wayside”- framing this as an okay, or even positive thing.

Media outlets continue to push that narrative that “most” people won’t get Long COVID, while encouraging everyone to assume that the unfortunate outliers will be, simply, somebody else. Vulnerable people, left with zero public protection, have had to adopt extreme measures to protect themselves, including isolation, constant masking, avoiding medical care and abandoning professional careers. These measures are not only ignored by liberals; they are mocked and derided by liberals, and sometimes even leftists.

The message is loud and clear to disabled and immunocompromised people who cannot afford a COVID infection (or in the case of Long COVID patients, another COVID infection): shut up and/or disappear. It’s the message vulnerable folks have always received from anti-vaxxers, and an explicitly eugenicist one. This brings us to the end with:

• Mainstreamed anti-vaxxer belief #6:

  The strong will survive, the weak won’t, and that’s a good thing

The anti-vax movement has always been eugenicist. The logic goes that, if your kid is healthy, they will not only recover, but build strength from infectious disease exposure. The people who die- well sadly, they just weren’t built for survival. They’re the necessary sacrifices of a stronger collective, weeding out the weak and embracing a Darwinian, survival of the fittest model. It’s no surprise that anti-vaxxer beliefs overlap heavily with other fascist beliefs, like white nationalism, great replacement conspiracies, and fear of diversity and inclusion. Fundamentally, anti-vaxxers believe that some people should survive, and others should not. Some people should have rights and privileges, others should not. Some people are superior, others inferior.

This deeply fascist belief is the beating heart of COVID normalization. Without it, all the other beliefs listed above don’t gel together and form the poisonous worldview now adopted across the political spectrum: some people are going to die, and it’s not our job to prevent that or care.

Now, morally, this view is abhorrent. It’s also completely wrong on a practical level. As mentioned above, COVID infections are not harmless, but are directly harmful to anyone with a vascular system, a brain, an immune system, and organs (that’s you). You may feel okay after your COVID infection, and you may not. You may develop microclots in your blood, a new onset heart problem, and you may sustain cognitive damage, no matter how healthy you were prior to COVID. You may develop new onset autoimmune disorders, and/or become more vulnerable to other infections.

In other words, the “strong” who survive COVID are becoming slightly less strong all the time. They are not beating COVID and becoming a super-race of Übermenschen, destined to rule over a newly healthy population with an incredible life expectancy. Instead, they too are becoming sicker. They too are missing work and school at record rates. They too are becoming vulnerable. Different people may tolerate different numbers of infections, but one thing is certain; continue to get infected with SARS-COV-2, every year, over and over again, and you will eventually move into the category of disposable people. You will have become the vulnerable, who don’t deserve protection. Who don’t deserve mitigation. Who don’t deserve to live.

---

The story of COVID normalization is ultimately a story of breaking solidarity. We went from embracing a social model of public health that prioritized the safety of vulnerable people as the greatest priority, to one that explicitly denies them safety and promotes harming them. In essence, public health itself, the concept of collectively combatting disease for the collective benefit of all, is what we’ve lost. It’s been replaced by a cruel, sadistic, eugenicist program of deliberate elimination of the weak as a named and accepted cost of abandoning all attempts to control COVID.

This social normalization of the anti-vaxxer worldview, the mainstreaming of the idea that illness is good and the weak must die, has implications that will follow us well past the normalization of this virus. What does a society look like when parents believe making their children sick is good for them? Is that a society that effectively controls measles outbreaks? What does a society look like if the people in it believe lockdowns and masks can physically harm them? Is that a society that willingly adopts those measures again during an outbreak of a highly pathogenic disease like H5N1, now spreading uncontrolled among America’s dairy cows?

What does a society that no longer “believes the science” do when science is our greatest disease fighting weapon?

What does a society full of people who think disease elimination is stupid and silly do about other diseases?

What does a society trained to hate the vulnerable do to the vulnerable?

Anti-vaxxers are certainly a threat to the collective. So are the mainstream liberals who’ve adopted every one of their beliefs about viruses, disease mitigation, public health, and who deserves safety.