Vaccines and Resistance

Like many others, I have been fascinated, and often horrified, by the resistance of large percentages of Americans to being vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus. Though this resistance seems to be most widespread in rural areas—especially in the South and Midwest, so-called ‘Trump country’ dominated by white, rural conservatives and Fundamentalist Christians—it is by no means limited to those areas. I have family members living in Vermont and Colorado who have so far refused to get the vaccine. There are pockets of resistance in urban areas as well, especially in minority communities. As for me, I am in the high-risk age group, and was vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine as soon as I could get it in late January. The decision seemed elementary to me, and even to most people I know, including my children. After all, this virus is deadly, especially to older people, but it has also begun to infect and kill younger Americans, including some children, once thought to be essentially immune. Now, with the spread of the very dangerous and highly transmissible Delta variant, the danger is even greater for the pandemic to become a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” So why would anyone fortunate enough to live in America, where the vaccine is readily available, refuse this protection?

My sense is that too many people have no idea what the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines consist of, and so are wary of getting infected from the very medication meant to protect them. That is, they think that the mRNA vaccines used against Covid-19 employ the same technology as the original vaccine developed in the nineteenth century to immunize people against smallpox, or later against polio. That is, those vaccines normally inserted a weakened or inactivated disease germ into our bodies to stimulate the immune system, which then created antibodies to fight off the invader. Effective, yes, but for some people, the idea of actually injecting the germ into their bodies conjured up terrifying images and fears of getting diseased by the very injection meant to protect them. 

However, a quick research hunt on the web would reveal that mRNA vaccines do NOT use this method—that’s why they are considered much safer. That is, the mRNA vaccines actually “teach” our cells to make a protein (teaching cells to make proteins is the basic function of mRNA, where the “m” stands for messenger) that mimics the so-called ‘spike’ on the surface of the Covid-19 virus. That harmless protein, or piece of protein, then triggers your immune system (which recognizes that the protein is an invader that does not belong) to create specific antibodies to fight the virus. And those antibodies protect you from getting the virus if it later enters your body. Importantly, after the protein piece is made, the cells break down the instructions and discard the spike protein. 

The vaccinated body, its cells, in this way are taught how to make antibodies to fight off future infections from Covid-19. And these vaccines have been proven to be very effective—not 100% to be sure, but close—against the virus, especially against the dire outcomes and deaths typical of Covid-19, and its new variants as well. And again, the great advantage of mRNA vaccines is that no potentially harmful germs need be injected into the body. This last advantage should be of critical importance to those who oppose vaccinations in general. This is because one key and historical objection to vaccines is that, by using a deactivated portion of the actual germ, there is a perceived risk of mistakenly infecting the vaccinated body, rather than protecting it. This is simply not an issue with mRNA vaccines. Nor is the objection about mixing animal and human bodily ‘fluids,’ that once formed the basis of objections to the smallpox vaccine (which was made from deactivated cowpox from cattle.)

So then, why, in the United States, are we nowhere close to ending this pandemic (though whether pandemics are ever truly over, is another question; apparently, the 1918 flu continued to infect people for years after it disappeared from most people’s consciousness)? And even less so the effects of so-called “long covid,” or “post-acute sequelae of COVID-19,”—a condition that most often affects younger people, and can  involve long term damage to the heart (increased chance of heart failure), the lungs (breathing difficulties), the brain (strokes etc.), and usually involves persistent symptoms or new symptoms that develop, generally speaking, at least four to eight weeks after the initial infection with COVID-19.  The truth is that, even in the face of such critical outcomes, vast numbers of people resist vaccination. So, with large pockets of resistance to the vaccine, achieving ‘herd immunity’ with 75 or 80 percent of Americans vaccinated, will be extremely difficult since, at this point, we are perhaps at 60 percent, and worse, large areas of the nation have concluded that the crisis is over, and they can get back to “normal.” Hence crowds of people are again gathering in crowded bars, restaurants, and other enclosed areas. But the crisis, driven anew by the Delta variant, seems to be revving up for another round, another huge surge—especially in states like Missouri and Florida where resistance to any measures, especially vaccines, to stop the spread is very high. So the question becomes, what is the basis of that vaccine resistance? 

A look at why people have been resisting shots is both hilarious, and deeply disturbing about what Americans of all sorts will believe. Much of the vaccine resistance seems to come from posts on Internet sites like Facebook and Twitter and TikTok, or right-wing media outlets like Fox News, Newsmax and others. This is not to say that reasonable concerns about the gross profit motives of pharmaceutical companies aren’t at issue; nor concerns about the rush to certify vaccines without time to properly test outcomes. But more resistance, it seems, derives from lunatic beliefs and social pressures. An article from the July 31 Washington Post, for example, notes that in Arkansas, Governor Asa Hutchinson “has traveled the state to combat the widespread idea that the shots are a “bioweapon.” A bioweapon! Even more specifically, 12-year old Shanuana Alcantar of Los Angeles, when interviewed, said her hesitancy about the vaccine had to do with reports she saw online that “it would make her arm magnetic: ‘I was really scared seeing all of those TikToks of the metal spoons and the magnets hanging from people’s arms, she said.’ Good grief! If this kind of nonsense weren’t so dangerous, it would be the stuff of laugh-out-loud comedy. Then there’s 25-year-old Chelsah Skaggs of Arkansas, who said she feared reports that the vaccine would make her infertile. And 18-year-old Tyler Sprenkle, who worried, once he got the vaccine, that his friends “would look down on me, say I was turning into a liberal or a raging Democrat” (this illustrates the widespread community-approval type of resistance.) Not to be outdone, 57-year-old welder Tim Boover, hesitated for months both about Facebook posts claiming that the vaccines had “bad side effects,” and also reports that “vaccines contained microchips that could be used to track people.”  Vaccines with microchips? I suppose all these might be considered within the realm of possibility, but really? People actually believe this nonsense?

The good news, however, is that all of these people eventually decided to get the vaccine. The above-mentioned Chelsah Skaggs finally decided to do her own research, and concluded that though “skepticism is a good thing…to be ignorant is a different issue.”  Well, thank god. For Boover, it was the Delta variant, which killed his childhood friend, that has scared him, like many others, into getting the shot’s protection. In Boover’s case, too, designing and forging the urn for his friend’s ashes, helped turn the tide for him: “This morning, I had to seal her in a box, weld that shut over her ashes,” he said. “It was rough. Then I made my mind up: I’m gonna get that shot.” 

That fear-driven action pattern seems to be a major hope now. Vaccine resisters, who have been virtually impervious to reason or evidence or appeals from government officials, or public health and contagious-disease experts, are now responding to death—the possible death of their parents or grandparents, or even themselves. Accordingly, the same July 31 Washington Post report noted that “More than 856,000 doses were administered Friday, the highest daily figure since July 3” and that “This was the third week that states with the highest numbers of coronavirus cases also had the highest vaccination numbers.” 

Though we would prefer it if people came to see that getting vaccinated actually helps everyone (because without “herd immunity,” the virus simply keeps finding new bodies to infect, and hence the numbers to evolve new variants, meaning no one is safe until everyone is), death will do. When all else fails, that is, good old Dr. Death can and does do the trick. And though it is terrifying to reflect that this—people dying in large numbers—is the only way to convince skeptics that they may be wrong, it at least comforts us to know that something can cut through the long trail of bullshit that has prevailed in right-wing enclaves up till now. Perhaps it will even succeed in saving a few lives, and, ultimately, the lives of us all. 

Lawrence DiStasi