There are big employers who have issued vax requirements, like United Airlines and Novant Health in North Carolina. They have found that out of tens of thousands of employees, despite a bit of moaning and whining, almost all but a few hundred have gone ahead and gotten the shots. Mandates work, and school mandates have decades of evidence behind them as well.
Antivaxxers are desperately hoping that people will fall for the concern troll line – “oh, if you only try harder to persuade people, if you only listen harder to what they have to say, they’ll come around in the end.”
The press loves both sides narratives and either ridiculously elevates the dumb counterarguments or allows subject-changing dodges, and there are ridiculous numbers of reporters, editors, producers and on-air personalities who get their egos stroked by entertaining the dumbest self gratification that comes from carefully accommodating anti-vax viewpoints. Stupidly, they think it’s savvy to treat conservative viewpoints as a protected class that needs special treatment.
This kind of thinking is slowly getting beaten down, but it’s ridiculous how many fake centrists and edgelord contrarians still hold the line and think the problem is everywhere but with the right wing. Good for California for finally treating a pandemic as a pandemic. I only wish we had gotten even more serious more quickly.
