At the start of the Delta variant, the media, the Democrats, and snobby liberal America knew who to blame. It was the unvaccinated. Yes, they make up virtually all the recent hospitalizations and new deaths. The goal should have been to convince these people to get the shot, not denigrate them, and certainly not mock their deaths. Liberal America took the latter route. The moral superiority complex kicked in and now those who were on the fence are firmly entrenched in their position to not get vaccinated. To make matters worse, the experts and the Biden White House continue to fail at messaging. The cherry on top of this government fail sundae is that they think bribing people $100 will boost vaccination rates. Some people are skeptical of government, some have questions about long-term risks, and others simply don’t want it. It’s their choice. It should always be a choice. Only a liberal would view the unvaccinated as a sub-human species. Yet, more and more stories have shredded this narrative. For starters, they’re not all Trump lovers or Republicans. It’s not religion either. By May 11, Data Progress noted that 60+ percent of Jews, Catholics, and other non-denominational Christians have had at least one dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Now, are a good chunk of COVID vaccine hesitators GOP supporters, sure—but some 40 percent of New York City’s workers remain unvaccinated. One-quarter of health care workers are unvaccinated. In fact, the most hesitant group have higher education degrees, doctorates to be exact. I doubt these folks are hard-core MAGA or readers of conservative media.
It’s a very complicated and very nuanced debate, one that has been raging for years. And now, The New York Times has a story about how young black New Yorkers are simply saying “no” to the COVID vaccine (via NYT):
A construction site safety manager in Queens said that as a Black man, he was more worried about the prospect of being stopped by the police than he was about getting Covid-19.
A graduate student in the Bronx who had not gotten vaccinated said her worst fears seemed confirmed when a vaccine that the government was directing to Black and poorer neighborhoods was briefly suspended over a small number of dangerous blood clots.
And a civil rights activist in the Bronx said he grew suspicious when he heard last year that politicians were prioritizing minority neighborhoods for coronavirus vaccinations.
[…]
All three situations reflect a trend that has become a major concern to public health experts: Young Black New Yorkers are especially reluctant to get vaccinated, even as the Delta variant is rapidly spreading among their ranks. City data shows that only 28 percent of Black New Yorkers ages 18 to 44 years are fully vaccinated, compared with 48 percent of Latino residents and 52 percent of white residents in that age group.
This vaccination gap is emerging as the latest stark racial disparity in an epidemic full of them. Epidemiologists say they expect this third wave will hit Black New Yorkers especially hard.
“This is a major public health failure,” said Dr. Dustin Duncan, an epidemiologist and Columbia University professor.
Yeah, well maybe you experts should have thought about the consequences of going on television and telling people that the vaccine doesn’t work.
‘Get the shot but keep wearing a mask.’ You all heard it for weeks from these clowns. Why? People will question whether the vaccine works. That’s what comes from these sentiments. They didn’t care and now tens of millions are simply refusing to get vaccinated. You can’t blame Trump. You can’t blame Ron DeSantis. Young black NYC residents don’t trust the government, but it’s not just them. After this fiasco, EVERYONE should be skeptical of the medical experts, and many have tuned out these clowns who say one thing only to say something else that contradicts what was taken as gospel hours later. And now, with cities and localities passing soft vaccine passport mandates, it looks like young blacks will be barred from certain public settings. But I thought the country bumpkins were the reason why vaccination levels stagnated, right? It’s a mess that only liberal America could make.