Get tough on anti-vaccine bully boys

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Some believe Covid-19 is a hoax perpetrated by medical fraudsters in order to line their own pockets. Stock image

October 23 2021 11:00 AM

Climate change sceptics and anti-vaxxers have much in common. Both latch onto the (very occasional) dissenting report and elevate it to the status of holy writ.

Their championing of this minority opinion then seems to mushroom.

Some believe Covid-19 is a hoax perpetrated by medical fraudsters in order to line their own pockets.

Miniscule risks of an adverse reaction are gleefully seized upon as proof that all they’ve been preaching is true. Facts don’t interest them.

In the same way, climate change sceptics point to a late-October flurry of sleet as confirmation everything from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a self-serving lie designed to enslave us.

Normal scientific or medical disputes at least share a common language of rationality.

It is infinitely more difficult to challenge arguments when they’re expressed in ahistorical gibberish.

But there are differences between the two. While climate change sceptics seem to emerge mainly from the political Right, anti-vaxxers are to be found on the extreme Right, extreme Left and all points in between.

Similarly, though climate change denial has powerful backers in fossil fuel-dependent industries, anti-vaxxers seem to have no corporate sponsors.

Worryingly, a small minority of anti-vaxxers persist in their self-delusion even beyond the point of a positive Covid diagnosis.

It is, nonetheless, a hallmark of a democratic society to tolerate even the most extreme beliefs until they threaten to harm others.

That point has now been reached with the targeting of Northern Ireland politicians by extreme Covid-denying conspiracy theorists.

Members of all the main political parties have been singled out, either in writing or by people visiting their constituency offices, accusing them of “crimes” linked to vaccines and lockdown.

The time to try reasoning with these people is over. Threats and intimidation are criminal offences. They should be treated as such.

Get tough on anti-vaccine bully boys

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