Antivaxxers (anti-vaccination activists) seem to be so deluded or gullible that they will believe anything despite it being clearly untrue and easily debunked1,2. Many of them refuse to have any Covid-19 vaccine, despite the fact that any adverse reactions to the various vaccines is miniscule compared to the risk of death or serious long-term illness from Covid-19.
While many of the problems we now have in New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory (which are all locked down to varying degrees because of the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19), are due to the lack of action by the Morrison government in obtaining enough vaccine doses early enough3. Because of this murderous incompetence, and because the NSW Premier, Gladys Berejiklian has seemingly raised the white flag in the battle to supress the Delta variant, NSW has today (3/9/2021) recorded 1,431 new cases and 12 deaths, we are now in such a state that the only way left out of the pandemic seems no longer to be suppression (as in WA, SA, NT, Qld, Tas), but vaccination. That this is due to the ineptitude of the federal and NSW governments is clear. What is also clear is that the people who will pay for this the most are those who have not been vaccinated. While some of these will be people who have wanted to, and tried to get vaccinated but have been unable to do so quickly, many of them will be antivaxxers who simply refuse to get vaccinated. As has been shown in the United States, with their relatively high rate of vaccination (currently 52% of the entire population4), the latest wave of Covid-19 is largely amongst the unvaccinated5. This latest wave in the US is now recording 164,000 new cases per day and over 1,200 deaths per day6.
The irony in all this is that many who are antivaxxers are driven by far-right ideology and, I suspect, vote for far-right parties such as One Notion, Clive Palmer’s UAP and even the Liberal Party (after all the Liberals railed against lockdowns in Labor-held states). Yet, it is the Liberal Party’s failings in vaccine procurement, which will directly impact antivaxxers the most. So, the people antivaxxers are most likely to vote for either directly or by preferential vote, have put Australia in a position which will lead to many unvaccinated people, including those vehemently against vaccination, dying. Given antivaxxers’ supreme stupidity, I doubt they see this irony.
Sources
- https://www.publichealth.org/public-awareness/understanding-vaccines/vaccine-myths-debunked/
- https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-19-vaccines-myth-versus-fact
- https://blotreport.com/2021/08/18/the-morrison-nightmare/
- https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=AUS~AUT~BHR~BEL~BRA~CAN~CHL~CZE~DNK~EST~FIN~FRA~DEU~GRC~ISL~IND~IDN~IRL~ISR~ITA~JPN~MEX~NLD~NOR~POL~PRT~RUS~KOR~ESP~SWE~CHE~GBR~ARE~USA~URY
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/18/covid-hospitals-delta/
- https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
