A Biden administration that vowed to restore Americans’ faith in public health has grown increasingly paralyzed over how to combat the resurgence in vaccine skepticism.
And internally, aides and advisers concede there is no comprehensive plan for countering a movement that’s steadily expanded its influence on the president’s watch.
The rising appeal of anti-vaccine activism has been underscored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s insurgent presidential campaign and fueled by prominent factions of the GOP. The mainstreaming of a once-fringe movement has horrified federal health officials, who blame it for seeding dangerous conspiracy theories and bolstering a Covid-era backlash to the nation’s broader public health practices.
But as President Joe Biden ramps up a reelection campaign centered on his vision for a post-pandemic America, there’s little interest among his aides in courting a high-profile vaccine fight — and even less certainty of how to win.
“There’s a real challenge here,” said one senior official who’s worked on the Covid response and was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But they keep just hoping it’ll go away.”
The White House’s reticence is compounded by legal and practical concerns that have cut off key avenues for repelling the anti-vaccine movement, according to interviews with eight current and former administration officials and others close to the process.
what is the problem really? who is losing what here? i dont mean hurt feelings but what would we as a planet lose?
Herd immunity protects us all. Believe me, if it were just the stupid people dying, then this would be an entirely different problem, one we might be able to ignore.
But Covid doesn’t kill fast enough or frequently enough. It lingers, and it might kill you, but it’s more likely to just reproduce like crazy, mutate, and infect people around you. The longer we tolerate anti-vaxxers walking around coughing on people, the more likely we are to see yet another vaccine-resistant variant.
the downvotes in this community tell me this is not up for discussion. c-sections in sweden …give factfullness by hans rosling a try. i do not see where this would be an overall loss.
If we could get the anti-vaxxers away from everyone else, then it wouldn’t be as much of a problem. They could die of diseases off in a corner.
But the issue is that they are still in society, being vectors for these diseases and causing new outbreaks.
round the cookers up and ship em off somewhere then. they can all be terminally online together on some island