It didn't help that the AstraZeneca vaccine was fairly bad all things considered. At roughly 3 micromort according to the latest data it's quite a lot of risk for a modern vaccine actually. Now, compared to getting Covid it's still better. Even for a 10 year old the covid risk is ~20 micromort and we don't recommend vaccines for that group. Which seems a bit bonkers when you consider that trading 20 for 3 is clearly a good choice, it's just that anti-vaccine loonies make politicians scared out of their minds, so they will rather have lots of kids dying than a few kids dying from vaccines.
I suspect the issue is in part also just selfishness.
That 20 is in large part the kid that was brought into the hospital too late if at all. The kid that might have had astma or what have you.
The 3 is potentially yours or one in your family or friend group or community. It is a government mandated death and you might already distrust the gov.
A tragic event vs an authoritarian death inflicted upon you from that perspective.
My grandma is a scientist presumably very familiar with all this stuff but when her partner (not my grandpa) died from a bloodcloth shortly after getting an vaccine she also veered into that territory.
> It is a government mandated death and you might already distrust the gov.
Well.. no. It was a government RECOMMENDED death at the most.
In fact, it's even more stupid. Sweden for example were so deadly afraid of anti-vaxxers that they threw away tens of thousands of doses of AstraZenecas vaccine. The one with 2 deaths per million. At the time it was estimated at 5 per million. Sweden has a population of 10 million. So if we instantly vaccinated the entire population we would see 2 deaths. While this decision to throw away doses was done we lost tens per day. And the government didn't allow those who understood math to take this if they wanted. No. They mandated the deaths. THOSE deaths WERE mandated. For real.