Taking the Fight to Anti-Vaxxers and Covid Deniers

 

We need to fight fear with facts to put this pandemic to bed

After a year of right-wing disinformation about the COVID-19 virus, I suppose no one should be too surprised it has seamlessly transitioned to spreading false information about its vaccine. Memes are flooding social media with dire warnings claiming the vaccines are experimental and dangerous. The objective evidence overwhelmingly shows this to be nonsense. Yet, for someone whose worldview is shaped by what they see on Facebook, it’s not hard to see how they might struggle to discern the truth.

In the past the anti-vaxxer movement has been split pretty evenly between Republicans and Democrats. This has changed with the COVID vaccine, we’re now seeing a strong association between political ideology and vaccine skepticism. Several recent polls have shown Democrats are more than twice as likely to indicate they will get the vaccine. This seems odd given that President Trump claimed the vaccine as one of the triumphs of his administration and received the vaccine himself. Here in Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis has likewise been vaccinated and is encouraging the public to do the same. In fact, there’s not a Republican governor in the country that isn’t following a similar course of actions. It seems the QAnon conspiracy theories that were allowed to set seed during the Trump administration have taken on a life of their own.

It’s Just the Flu, Right?

One piece of disinformation that has been persistent throughout the pandemic relates to the lethality of the virus. Despite hospitals running at near capacity and the pleas of public health officials, there are still claims being made that COVID is no worse than the common flu. In some cases, that turns out to be true, so there’s an abundance of anecdotal evidence to support that opinion. Somehow they seem to ignore the many cases of otherwise healthy people who have died horrible deaths. Much of their propaganda uses facts from legitimate reports before twisting it to suit their purposes. These propagandists assume, usually correctly, that the reader won’t actually read the source document. By downplaying the seriousness of the virus they make getting vaccinated seem less important.

The number of COVID deaths is an issue I’ve been following and writing about for months. Trying to determine the number of infected people is problematic because many who don’t require hospitalization never get the test. Deaths on the other hand produce an official government record. There have been many conspiracy theories surrounding the listed cause of death for COVID victims. There have long been claims hospitals are inflating the numbers by falsely listing COVID on death certificates for financial gain. However, the total number of deaths from all causes is pretty hard to dispute. If there is a marked increase in deaths above normal that is strong evidence that something new is the cause. That’s exactly what we’ve seen since early March 2020.

Just Don’t Look At All The Bodies

This chart shows the week by week deaths from all causes compared to the expected number of deaths. This unmistakably shows both a reliable estimate of COVID deaths as well as their pattern over the last 13 months. There was a huge surge of deaths last spring, followed by a big decrease following the initial lock down. Since then there’s been successive waves of deaths associated loosening and tightening of COVID restrictions. Finally, with Thanksgiving and Christmas, restrictions were either loosened again or ignored as people travel to see family. This led to the third, and the most deadly wave of deaths in December and January. Now with vaccinations in full progress around the country there is another decline in deaths.

The main problem with this measure of COVID deaths is it takes 6 to 8 weeks to get reliable data from the CDC. Because of that, for the most recent period I’m relying on the reported COVID deaths from the New York Times as the most complete information available. Based on this data it is clear there has been about 700,000 deaths in America from this coronavirus. News outlets have sporadically reported this information for months. Despite this, most stories still rely on the official COVID deaths which understates the number by nearly 150,000.

What About...

QAnon supporters have spread memes on social media to discredit this information. They’ve tried to explain away this undeniable increase in deaths by claiming it’s the result of increased suicides and domestic violence caused by the pandemic restrictions. It is true there are factors other than the virus at play in the change in total deaths. This is why it can only be considered an estimate. The number of homicides last year did increase about 4,000 over the previous year. However, analysis of the preliminary statistics of deaths by suicide show there was no increase in those deaths. Surprisingly, traffic fatalities were up by about 3,000. It appears people were speeding more with less traffic on the roads.

Potentially the biggest non-COVID factor in the excess deaths statistics is the drastic decrease in flu deaths. Typically 25,000 to 35,000 people die of the flu each year. The preliminary numbers for this flu season are less than 10% of the previous year. It appears the COVID protocols may have saved tens of thousands of lives from influenza. Of course the flu mostly kills the elderly, so some people who might have died of the flu may have died of COVID instead. This makes it difficult to calculate the net number of decreased deaths from the flu. Regardless, when you take all this together it’s clear none of these factors make a sizable dent in the excess deaths. The only plausible explanation is COVID caused these deaths and the vaccination program is beginning to save thousands of lives.

But I Know A Guy

This should be enough to put the whole matter to rest, but the anti-vaxxer community never lets facts get in the way of their agenda. A more recent tactic is to document people who became infected after getting their vaccination. I’ve been alarmed at how effective these anecdotal cases can be. Their message is,“Why go to the trouble of getting your vaccination if you can still get sick?” The truth is no vaccine is 100% effective. Public health officials always expected there would be a percentage of people who wouldn’t develop the antibodies needed to fight the virus.

With over 74 million Americans fully vaccinated it appears the average effectiveness rate of the three approved vaccines is about 80% at preventing infections. Further, they are 94% effective at preventing severe symptoms of the virus. Implicit in this is that some people will still get sick, and some will even die. However, this effectiveness rate will

reduce the population of susceptible people enough to prevent sustained transmission. In other words, these vaccines are proving to be the tool to end the pandemic, but only if people agree to use them.

But Is It Safe?

The other argument being used to scare people away from getting vaccinated is the old tried and true disinformation about vaccine safety. I’ve seen the fact that the CDC investigated 3,000 cases of people who were vaccinated then died within the next several weeks used as proof of the dangers of these vaccines. In reality it should have the opposite effect of reassuring people that they are monitoring for adverse reactions. The CDC investigates every death and none of these 3,000 deaths were found to be vaccine related. They conveniently overlook the fact the government focused the first rounds of vaccinations on the elderly. With millions of senior citizens getting vaccinated it’s not surprising a few thousand died of unrelated causes.

Since that report came out we’ve learned that six people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine developed blood clots. One of those six died of the complication and another person is still in intensive care. Keep in mind 126 million people have received at least one shot and there’s only one possible associated death. In January 3,500 people were dying everyday from COVID, it’s down to under 800 now thanks in large part to the vaccine.

Conclusion

It’s tempting to not worry about it and let nature thin the herd of those unwilling to listen to science. The truth however, is that many of these vaccine doubters are decent people who have fallen victim to a sophisticated marketing campaign. They need to hear the truth as often as they hear the lies. There’s also the self-interested reason that the longer this virus reproduces in the wild, the more likely it will develop a vaccine resistant mutation. This is also a compelling reason why wealthy industrialized countries need to help get the vaccines to less affluent countries. It’s in everyone’s interest to get this virus contained as quickly as possible. We now have the ability to do that, but we need to fight fear with facts to achieve this. Otherwise, the phrase “I told you so” is going to be cold comfort when we’re still dealing with COVID next winter.