<div dir="ltr"><div>Ublock and nano blocker, (for instance) skips the paywall. so does adding a . into the url. (chrome) it's a feature. it basically asks the url to look for absolute links from relative ones. (good for testing ?)</div><div>you can also turn on readermode (skips the paywall):</div><div><a href="https://www.nytimes.com./2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html">https://www.nytimes.com./2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html</a></div><div>The blurb.</div><div>TLDR a bunch of lunatics going on about blah blah blah my body my business. Then it turned into a political thing. and now it's a GD nightmare.</div><div>blah blah GOP blah blah blah don't like vaccines because ma rights blah blah. Scientists aren't getting through. Because they don't speak joe average blah blah some analogies to treating anti-vacers as cats and bribe them.</div><div>And everyone is fucking pissed at them. <br></div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div>
<div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Back
when a viral pandemic killing millions around the world was just the
plot of a scary movie, the film “Contagion” was lauded for how
accurately it depicted the way such an outbreak would occur.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">On
the science of viral contagion, it was quite sharp, clearly explaining
things like R0 (the measure of how widely one infection could spread to
others, on average).</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Of the human
dimension of contagion, it did not prove as prescient. In the movie,
fearful nurses walked off the job at the start of the pandemic, which
begins to end as soon as vaccines become available, with people lining
up eagerly for their turn.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">The
opposite happened in real life. Despite enormous personal risk, almost
all health care workers stayed on the job in the first months of the
Covid pandemic. Despite vaccines being widely available since spring in
the United States, tens of thousands of people are dying every month
because they chose not to be inoculated.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">The
failure of the United States to vaccinate more people stands out,
especially since we had every seeming advantage to get it done. As early
as the end of April of this year, when vaccines were in dire short
supply globally, almost every adult who wanted to get vaccinated against
Covid-19 in the United States could do so, free of charge. By June,
about 43 percent of the U.S. population had received two doses while
that number was only about 6 percent in Canada and 3 percent in Japan.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Now, just a few months later, these countries, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html" title="">along with 44 others</a>,
have surpassed U.S. vaccination rates. And our failure shows: America
continues to have among the highest deaths per capita from Covid.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Science’s
ability to understand our cells and airways cannot save us if we don’t
also understand our society and how we can be led astray.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">There is a clear partisan divide over vaccination — Republicans are more likely to tell pollsters <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/352976/vaccine-hesitancy-public-opinion.aspx" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">that they will not get vaccinated</a>.
Some Republican politicians and Fox News hosts have been pumping out
anti-vaccine propaganda. The loud, ideological anti-vaxxers exist, and
it’s not hard to understand the anger directed at them. All this may
make it seem as if almost all the holdouts are conspiracy theorists and
anti-science die-hards who think that Covid is a hoax, or that there is
nothing we can do to reach more people.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Real-life evidence, what there is, demonstrates that there’s much more to it.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">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 <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/01/americans-main-sources-for-political-news-vary-by-party-and-age/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Fox News viewers</a> and is more likely to <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/415356-survey-only-group-breaking-for-republicans-are-americans-65-or-older" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">vote Republican</a>. Clearly, misinformation is not destiny.</p></div><div id="gmail-c-col-editors-picks" class="gmail-css-j64t31"><h2 class="gmail-css-ohexsw">Editors’ Picks</h2><a class="gmail-css-1sj6bre" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/travel/alaska-autumn-road-trip.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=239854433&impression_id=287b5360-2ed7-11ec-9f9c-a5057f6d7ec7&index=0&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls®ion=ccolumn&req_id=562793420&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity"><div class="gmail-css-1rcvpgy"><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/15/travel/15Alaska-road-trip1/15Alaska-road-trip1-square640-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350"></div><h3 class="gmail-css-1p08cbr">On a Fall Road Trip in Alaska, Prepare for the Unexpected</h3></a><a class="gmail-css-1sj6bre" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/arts/television/squid-game-violence.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=684271115&impression_id=287b5361-2ed7-11ec-9f9c-a5057f6d7ec7&index=1&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls®ion=ccolumn&req_id=562793420&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity"><div class="gmail-css-1rcvpgy"><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/13/arts/11squid-notebook/11squid-notebook-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350"></div><h3 class="gmail-css-1p08cbr">Haven’t Watched ‘Squid Game’? Here’s What You’re Not Missing.</h3></a><a class="gmail-css-1sj6bre" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/style/finding-love-autism-spectrum.html?action=click&algo=identity&block=editors_picks_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=798728732&impression_id=287b5362-2ed7-11ec-9f9c-a5057f6d7ec7&index=2&pgtype=Article&pool=editors-picks-ls®ion=ccolumn&req_id=562793420&surface=home-featured&variant=0_identity"><div class="gmail-css-1rcvpgy"><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/07/17/fashion/17loveonspectrum/17loveonspectrum-square640.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&width=350"></div><h3 class="gmail-css-1p08cbr">The Highs and Lows of Finding Love on the Spectrum</h3></a><div id="gmail-pp_edpick-wrapper"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html#after-pp_edpick" class="gmail-css-1ly73wi">Continue reading the main story</a></div></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Second, reality has refuted dire predictions about how Americans would respond to vaccine mandates. In a poll in September, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1436093954915803138" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">72 percent of the unvaccinated said they would quit</a>
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 <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.barrons.com/articles/united-airlines-covid-vaccine-51634142957?tesla=y" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">only 232 holdouts among 67,000 employees</a>. Among about 10,000 employees in state-operated health care facilities in North Carolina, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://abc11.com/nc-covid-19-vaccine-in-children-deaths/11110474/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">only 16 were fired for noncompliance</a>.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">The
remarkable success of vaccine mandates shows it is not firm ideological
commitments that have kept everyone from getting vaccinated, and that
the stubborn, unpersuadable holdouts may be much smaller than we
imagine.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Let’s start with what we do know about the unvaccinated.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-"><div class="gmail-css-79elbk"><div class="gmail-css-7lkgl0 ehw59r12" height="806.8333129882812px" width="1200px"><div class="gmail-css-tux0zj ehw59r13"><div width="1200px" height="806.8333129882812px" class="gmail-css-tf550k ehw59r14"><div style="visibility: hidden; transition: visibility 0s ease 0.5s;"><div class="gmail-css-8h527k"><div style="height:auto"><span class="gmail-css-1j5kxti" style="opacity:1"><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/15/reader-center/15tufekci_5/15tufekci_5-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail-"><div class="gmail-css-79elbk"><div class="gmail-css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="gmail-css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><span class="gmail-css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="gmail-css-8h527k"><div style="height:auto"><span class="gmail-css-1j5kxti" style="opacity:1"><img class="gmail-css-1m50asq" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/15/reader-center/15tufekci_5/15tufekci_5-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span></div></div></div><span class="gmail-css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="gmail-css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span>Mario Tama / Getty Images</span></span></div></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">There
has been strikingly little research on the sociology of the pandemic,
even though billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on vaccines.
The assumption that some scientific breakthrough will swoop in to save
the day is built too deeply into our national mythology — but as we’ve
seen, again and again, it’s not true.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">The
research and data we do have show that significant portions of the
unvaccinated public were confused and concerned, rather than absolutely
opposed to vaccines.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Some key research on the unvaccinated comes from the <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://covidstates.org/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Covid States Project</a>, an academic consortium that managed to scrape together resources for regular polling. It <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://osf.io/fazup/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">categorizes them as</a>
“vaccine-willing” and “vaccine-resistant,” and finds the groups almost
equal in numbers among the remaining unvaccinated. (David Lazer, one of
the principal investigators of the Covid States Project, told me that
the research was done before the mandates, and that the consortium has
limited funding, so they can poll only so often.)</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Furthermore,
its research finds that the unvaccinated, overall, don’t have much
trust in institutions and authorities, and even those they trust, they
trust less: 71 percent of the vaccinated trust hospitals and doctors “a
lot,” for example, while only 39 percent of the unvaccinated do.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Relentless
propaganda against public health measures no doubt contributes to
erosion of trust. However, that mistrust may also be fueled by the sorry
state of health insurance in this country and the deep inequities in
health care — at a minimum, this could make people more vulnerable to
misinformation. 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 <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-september-2021/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the lack of health insurance</a>.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">The
Covid States team shared with me more than a thousand comments from
unvaccinated people who were surveyed. Scrolling through them, I noticed
a lot more fear than certainty. There was the very, very rare “it’s a
hoax” and “it’s a gene therapy,” but most of it was a version of: I’m
not sure it’s safe. Was it developed too fast? Do we know enough? There
was also a lot of fear of side effects, worries about lack of Food and
Drug Administration approval and about yet-undiscovered dangers.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Their
surveys also show that only about 12 percent of the unvaccinated said
they did not think they’d benefit from a vaccine: so, only about 4
percent of the national population.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">In
law, “dying declarations” are given special considerations because the
prospect of death can help remove the motivation to deceive or to
bluster. The testimony we’ve seen from unvaccinated people in their last
days with Covid, sometimes voiced directly by them from their hospital
beds, gets at some of the core truths of vaccine hesitancy. They are
pictures of confusion, not conviction.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">One woman who documented her final days <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/1035489298/before-dying-an-unvaccinated-tiktok-user-begged-others-not-to-repeat-her-mistake" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on TikTok</a>
described being uncertain about side effects, being worried about lack
of F.D.A. approval, and waiting to go with her family to get the shot —
until it was too late.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Or consider Josie and Tom Burko, married parents <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/09/we-have-a-little-girl-here-and-she-doesnt-have-her-people-covid-kills-parents-of-8-year-old.html" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">who</a>
died from Covid within days of each other, leaving behind an 8-year-old
daughter. They hadn’t taken the pandemic lightly. They were “100
percent pro-vaccination,” a close friend <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2021/09/we-have-a-little-girl-here-and-she-doesnt-have-her-people-covid-kills-parents-of-8-year-old.html" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">told The Oregonian afterward</a>,
but Josie reportedly had a heart murmur and chronic diabetes and
worried about an adverse reaction. Tom reportedly had muscular atrophy,
and similar worries. Afraid, they had not yet gotten vaccinated.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">It’s
easy to say that all these people should have been more informed or
sought advice from a medical provider, except that many have no health
care provider. As of 2015, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-pcp-trends/declining-numbers-of-americans-have-a-primary-care-provider-idUSKBN1YK1Z4" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">one quarter of the population in the United States</a> had no primary health care provider to turn to for trusted advice.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Along
with the recognition of greater risk, access to regular health care may
be an important explanation of why those over 65 are the
most-vaccinated demographic in the country. They have Medicare. That
might have increased their immunity against the Fox News scare stories.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">One
reason for low vaccination rates in rural areas may be that they are
“health care and media” deserts, as a recent NBC report on the <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/covid-vaccine-mistrust-fueling-spike-rural-deaths-here-s-what-ncna1280746?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">crises put it</a>, with few reliable local news outlets and the “implosion of the rural health care system” — <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/why-rural-hospital-closures-hit-a-record-high-in-2020.html" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">too few hospitals</a>, doctors and nurses.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Plus,
let’s face it, interacting with the medical system can be
stress-inducing even for many of us with health insurance. Any worry
about long-term side effects is worsened by a system in which even a
minor illness can produce unpredictable and potentially huge expenses.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Then
there is the health system’s long-documented mistreatment of Black
people (and other minorities) in this country. Black people are less
likely <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4976905/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">to be given pain medication</a> or <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2020/10/01/11/39/latest-evidence-on-racial-inequities-and-biases-in-advanced-hf" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">even treatment for life-threatening emergencies</a>, for instance. I thought of those statistics while reading the poignant <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/im-a-black-doctor-i-cant-persuade-my-mom-to-get-vaccinated/619933/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">story of a Black physician</a>
who could not persuade her mother to get vaccinated because her
mother’s previous interactions with the medical system included passing
out after screaming in agony when a broken arm got manipulated and
X-rayed without sufficient care for her pain.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">While the racial gap in vaccination <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/us/black-americans-vaccine-tuskegee.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article" title="">has improved over the last year</a>
— nonwhite people were more likely to express caution and a desire to
wait and see rather than to be committed anti-vaxxers — it’s still
there.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">In New York, for example, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.page" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">only 42 percent of African Americans</a>
of all ages (and 49 percent among adults) are fully vaccinated — the
lowest rate among all demographic groups tracked by the city.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">This
is another area in which the dominant image of the white,
QAnon-spouting, Tucker Carlson-watching conspiracist anti-vaxxer dying
to own the libs is so damaging. It can lead us to ignore the problem of
racialized health inequities with deep historic roots but also ongoing
repercussions, and prevent us from understanding that there are
different kinds of vaccine hesitancy, which require different
approaches.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-"><div class="gmail-css-79elbk"><div class="gmail-css-tyvvgx ehw59r12" height="800.38330078125px" width="1200px"><div class="gmail-css-tux0zj ehw59r13"><div width="1200px" height="800.38330078125px" class="gmail-css-7re8l9 ehw59r14"><div style="visibility: hidden; transition: visibility 0s ease 0.5s;"><div class="gmail-css-8h527k"><div style="height:auto"><span class="gmail-css-1j5kxti" style="opacity:1"><img alt="" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/15/reader-center/15tufekci_4/merlin_187711281_a601bb02-8b99-481a-9c16-da288b945fb1-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail-"><div class="gmail-css-79elbk"><div class="gmail-css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="gmail-css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><span class="gmail-css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="gmail-css-8h527k"><div style="height:auto"><span class="gmail-css-1j5kxti" style="opacity:1"><img class="gmail-css-1m50asq" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/10/15/reader-center/15tufekci_4/merlin_187711281_a601bb02-8b99-481a-9c16-da288b945fb1-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"></span></div></div></div><span class="gmail-css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="gmail-css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span>Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times</span></span></div></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Just ask Nicki Minaj.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">About a month ago, the rap artist made headlines after <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://twitter.com/NICKIMINAJ/status/1437532566945341441" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">tweeting that</a>
she was worried about vaccines because she had heard from her cousin
that a friend of his had swollen testicles after being vaccinated.
(Experts pointed out that, even if this had happened, it was most likely
caused by a sexually transmitted disease.) She was justifiably
denounced for spreading misinformation.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">But
something else that Minaj said caught my eye. She wrote that she hadn’t
done “enough research” yet, but that people should keep safe “in the
meantime” by wearing “the mask with 2 strings that grips your head &
face. Not that loose one.”</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">“Wear a
good mask while researching vaccines” is not the sentiment of a denier.
She seemed genuinely concerned about Covid, even to the point that she
seemed to understand that N95s, the high-quality masks that medical
professionals wear, which have the “2 strings that grips your head &
face,” were much safer.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Lazer said
that the Covid States Project’s research showed that unvaccinated people
who nonetheless wore masks were, indeed, more likely to be Black women.
In contrast, those who were neither vaccinated nor masked were more
likely to be Republicans, and more likely to be rural, less educated and
white. (Among the vaccinated, Asian Americans were most likely to be
still wearing masks.)</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Lazer also
highlighted an overlooked group with higher levels of vaccine hesitancy:
young mothers. They were hesitant, both for themselves and their
children, an alarming development especially if it starts affecting
other childhood vaccinations. Similarly, from real-life data, we know
that only a little more than <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations-pregnant-women" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">one-third of pregnant women </a>are vaccinated, which has led to <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pregnant-and-unvaccinated-deltas-deadly-toll/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">many tragic stories of babies losing their mothers</a> just as they are being whisked into the neonatal intensive care unit after an emergency cesarean section.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">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.”</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">We know from research into human behavior but also just common sense that in such situations, face-saving can be crucial.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">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.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Research also
shows that many of the unvaccinated have expressed concerns about
long-term effects. Consider an information campaign geared toward
explaining that unlike many drugs, for which adverse reactions can
indeed take a long time to surface, adverse effects of vaccines
generally occur within weeks or months, since they work differently, as
the immunologist Andrew Croxford <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://bostonreview.net/science-nature/andrew-l-croxford-long-term-safety-argument-over-covid-19-vaccines" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">explained in The Boston Review</a>.
Medical professionals could be dispatched to vaccination clinics,
workplaces and stores to get that point across. (Yes, medical
professionals are overwhelmed, but the best way to reduce their burden
is to vaccinate more people.) This would let some hesitant people feel
like they had “done their research,” while interacting with a medical
professional — the basis for more trust.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Finally, consider something hidden amid all the other dysfunction that plagues us: <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/21/opinion/needle-fear-vaccine-covid.html" title="">fear of needles</a>.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Don’t roll your eyes. Prepandemic research suggests that fear of needles <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/terrified-of-needles-that-can-affect-your-health-2021042722470" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">may affect</a> up to 25 percent of adults and may lead <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jan.13818" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">up to 16 percent</a> of adults to skip or <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26352920/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">delay</a>
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. During the
pandemic, <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/needle-phobia-could-be-cause-10-covid-vaccine-hesitancy-uk-new-research" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a study in Britain found</a> that <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/injection-fears-and-covid19-vaccine-hesitancy/A70D5D859CC25804B7AC4FB3AD54F68D" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">as many as one in four</a>
adults had injection phobia, and that those who did were twice as
likely to be vaccine-hesitant. Research by Covid States shows that about
14 percent of the remaining unvaccinated mention fear of needles as a
factor.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Countries with far higher
rates of vaccination, Canada and Britain, have responded by mobilizing
their greatest strength: a national health care system. <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/terrified-of-needles-here-s-how-torontonians-are-facing-their-fears-and-getting-covid-19-vaccines-1.5450309" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cities in Canada</a>
held clinics aimed especially at people with such anxiety, which
included privacy rooms and other accommodations. Britain’s national
health care system <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/covid-19-vaccine-support/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">offers similar accommodations</a>.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">I’ve
yet to find a systematic program in the United States addressing this
fear. Worse, much of our public communications around the vaccines
feature images of people getting jabbed with a needle, even though that
can worsen anxiety.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">In researching, I was inundated with stories from people who struggled with this fear and were often unable to find help. Some<a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://twitter.com/jjfeline/status/1425981271084175364?s=20" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> women said</a>
they were treated like drug seekers because they asked for a single
anti-anxiety pill to get through a shot. (They also said their male
family members and friends had an easier time.) It may seem hard to
believe that people might risk their lives over seemingly small fears,
but that’s exactly how people behave in many situations.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-css-s99gbd gmail-StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="gmail-css-53u6y8"><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Of course, there are some people who it seems will never be persuaded. One strategy that has been shown to work is to <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2847365/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">highlight deceptive practices</a>.
In campaigns to keep teens from smoking, advertisements pointed out how
the tobacco industry manipulated people. For Covid, the unvaccinated
could be shown that they have been taken in by people who have misled
them even while those people themselves got vaccinated.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Just recently, there was a brief glimpse at how Fox News actually <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1444032339747745795" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">looks behind the camera</a>:
Everyone in the office was wearing masks, even as the hosts have often
talked about the alleged tyranny of it all. Stars like Tucker Carlson
rant against vaccines, even as their network <a class="gmail-css-1g7m0tk" href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-business-health-arts-and-entertainment-fox-corp-26096a8781c7c7f1d6c0ddff98a5fe6d" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">says that</a>
more than 90 percent of full-time employees have been vaccinated.
Realizing that one may have been conned and manipulated by opportunists
who do not practice what they preach may — just may — be the
breakthrough for some.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Responding to
our societal dysfunctions has been among the greatest challenges of this
pandemic, especially since this includes a political and media
establishment stirring up resentment and suspicion to hold on to power
and attention in an increasingly unresponsive political system.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Anger — and even rage — at all this may be justified, but deploying <em class="gmail-css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0">only </em>anger
will not just obscure the steps we can and should try to take, it will
play into the hands of those who’d like to reduce all this to a shouting
match.</p><p class="gmail-css-axufdj evys1bk0">Instead, we need to develop a
realistic, informed and deeply pragmatic approach to our shortcomings
without ceding ground to the conspiracists, grifters and demagogues, and
without overlooking the historic inequities in health care and
weaknesses in our public health infrastructure. It’s not all fair, and
it is not a Hollywood ending, but it’s how we can move forward.</p></div></div>
</div></blockquote></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Oct 16, 2021 at 1:08 PM Barry MacKichan <<a href="mailto:barry.mackichan@mackichan.com">barry.mackichan@mackichan.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<div style="font-family:sans-serif"><div style="white-space:normal"><p dir="auto">I tried again. This time I used the sharing icon on the NYT website.</p>
<p dir="auto">On 16 Oct 2021, at 14:52, Jon Zingale wrote:</p>
</div>
<blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(119,119,119);color:rgb(119,119,119);margin:0px 0px 5px;padding-left:5px"><div id="gmail-m_1142878123376148521B53FACAF-1634-4778-8760-D0AE73A6D67A"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(51,51,51)">Barry,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(51,51,51)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(51,51,51)">It is behind a payway. Would you summarize?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(51,51,51)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(51,51,51)"><pre style="white-space:pre-wrap;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/opinion/covid-vaccines-unvaccinated.html</a></pre></div></div></div></blockquote>
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