Vaccine Refusers

What is one to do with these people? They are misguided. They are irrational. Some kind of fear controls their decision making. Powerful emotional forces within them are at work. The more one tries to shame them, argue with them, or coerce them, the more their fear ratchets up, the more adamant they become. One must consider that most of them are no more able to will themselves to abandon their intransigence than they would be able to shake off a Covid infection by willing it to go away.

In situations where it’s feasible, we have to offer alternatives that are emotionally acceptable to them, like weekly testing. We have to empathize with them and gently try to enlighten them and hope that they will gradually come to see that it’s in both their own self-interest and in the interest of others to do what they can to subdue the virus that is the common enemy of us all.