HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT

Personal space. U.S. vaccines fall into three categories: voluntary (like the flu, which only 45 percent of Americans got inoculated for in 2019); mandatory, like the MMR vaccination kids have to get to attend school; and compulsory, which is what happens when someone refuses to get a mandatory vaccine and is deemed a threat to public health. Anti-vaxxers opposed to government intervention say they’re worried that the coronavirus vaccine will fall into the third category — though doctors say fears about supply actually mean people will likely be competing to get the vaccine rather than scrambling away from it. Still, some anti-vaccine die-hards insist the coronavirus isn’t that serious (despite the fact that it’s now killed more Americans than the Vietnam War) and they’d prefer the disease to the vaccine.

Help or hurt. Anti-vaccine movements have gained ground in recent years — a Gallup Poll in January found just 84 percent of Americans currently say it’s very important that children be vaccinated, down 10 percentage points from 2001. Some influential peddlers of junk science have helped that along, and celebrities like M.I.A. and Novak Djokovic have said they’d refuse a coronavirus vaccine. Meanwhile, a wacky conspiracy theory holds that Bill Gates is supporting development of a vaccine so he has an excuse to microchip people. But the reality of an actual pandemic, some scientists hope, could drive home to skeptical parents the importance of inoculations, and help drive those vaccine confidence numbers up again to bolster herd immunity.

Moving too fast. One big driver of anti-vax sentiment in China has been the erosion of trust in pharma companies, like one in 2018 that was fined for falsifying data. In 2016, a fake vaccine scandal rocked Indonesia. Some worry that the speed at which labs are trying to produce a COVID-19 shot could actually bolster the anti-vax movement if the vaccine proves to not be very effective or if it has unpleasant side effects. And with the coronavirus increasingly becoming a political football — liberals are far more likely to be extremely concerned about the virus, according to a recent Axios poll — any hiccups with vaccines could also strengthen religious conservative views opposed to them in different parts of the world.

WHAT TO READ

How the Hunt for a Coronavirus Vaccine Could Go Horribly Wrong, by Rachel M. Cohen in The Daily Beast
“If a vaccine is released that doesn’t work well or yields dangerous side effects — especially in the face of an historic pandemic — it could empower anti-vaccine activists and reduce support for other longstanding vaccines that have gone through rigorous and exhaustive testing.”

How the Anti-Vaccine Community Is Responding to COVID-19, by Katharine Gammon at Undark Magazine
“To be anti-vaccine in today’s world, says [law professor Dorit] Reiss, you have to subscribe to some conspiracy theories, because there is so much data on the other side.”

WHAT TO WATCH