Tag Archives: anti-vaxxers

The New Dunce Confederates

Novak Djokovic (Photo by Darrian Traynor/Getty Images)



The great thing about professional sports is that they allow for vilification. Only in sport are we permitted to assign a name, number, even identifying color to help put a human face on villainy.

Yankee pinstripes. Celtic shamrocks. How ‘bout them Cowboys?

Now, say hello to the new knave: the unvaccinated jock. No need to hate them for their mascot. Now you can hate them for their mindset.

Normally, we cut these wont wits some slack. After all, they bounce balls and hurl sticks for a living. Find one that isn’t raging on steroids, beating on a loved one or selling their soul for home, life and auto insurance, and we’re talking political office.

Which may explain the latest degradation in American athletics. Because there’s no other way to describe the corrosive effect these athletes are having on the the very sport they claim to love and represent. Never mind the health of fans who cluster to watch them perform Stupid Human Tricks — or the “teammates” trying to do the same thing. The unvaccinated have become the new libertarians of the sports world.

In the spirit of ferreting fools, here are some of the most notable unvaccinated athletes:

Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers is the most recent famous athlete to make headlines because of being unvaccinated. After saying that he was “immunized” against the virus despite not receiving the vaccine, he tested positive in early November. So Aaron: Don’t think of yourself as having gotten your ass kicked in the playoffs Sunday. Think of it as being immunized from the Super Bowl again.

Novak Djokovic

Currently ranked the No.1 player in the world by the Association of Tennis Professionals, Djokovic has refused to disclose his vaccination status. He was deported back to his home in Serbia after trying to compete in the Australian Opening this month despite the country’s pandemic protocols. Hopefully France sends him packing again for the French Open.

Anthony Rizzo

When he played with the Chicago Cubs, Anthony Rizzo chose not to get vaccinated because he was “taking some more time to see the data.” He then tested positive for COVID in August after having been traded to the Yankees. When he was asked about his vaccination status again at the end of August, he said, “I just had COVID, so they say for three months I’m kinda in the clear, so I think after that it will be the time to really make the decision again.” The MLB doesn’t currently have a vaccination mandate for players.

Kyrie Irving

The NBA doesn’t have a mandatory vaccine policy either, but New York’s vaccine policy requires players be vaccinated in order to play or practice indoors. Brooklyn’s Irving, who refuses vaccination, can only play in away games in cities that do not have COVID mandates. Desperate for success, the Nets use him as road show attraction. Kind of like a carnival without the wisdom of carnies.

Cole Beasley

Cole Beasley has had A LOT to say — on Twitter and in person — about the NFL’s vaccination policy and COVID protocols, but it all boils down to the same thing: He’s unvaccinated and wishes to remain as such. He eventually deleted his Twitter account after posting, “I may die of COVID, but I’d rather die actually living.” Wait, what?

Much has been made about whether the unvaccinated — particularly vociferous anti-vaxxers — should be ridiculed when they fall to the virus. The question became contentious after the death of GOP figure and anti-vaxxer Kelly Ernby died from COVID earlier this month.

Former Orange County GOP Assembly candidate Kelly Ernby
Orange County GOP figure Kelly Ernby died last week of COVID after disparaging anti-pandemic measures.
(Ben Chapman)

And it’s hardly just athletes and politicians. Celebrities from Jim Carrey to Charlie Sheen to Alicia Silverstone proudly wear the anti-vax sash. Carrey once said he does not opt into “the C.D.C. agenda.” Do all of those people — and nearly half the nation, by most accounts — deserve scorn, ridicule, mockery?

Sadly, yes.

There are only two types of Americans who are not vaccinated in this pandemic: People who cannot get a vaccine, for economic or physical reasons; and those who will not.

Those in the first category deserve our sympathy and help, at all costs. This is America, goddamnit.

Those in the second category, misled by disinformation and misinformation, simply must be shunned. Were this, say, leprosy, would we be so welcoming of those willing to put the populace at existential risk?

America’s unvaccinated are the equivalent of smokers demanding the right to light up at the daycare center. Only worse: COVID is lung cancer you catch in a cough and die in a sneeze. If dimwits don’t want to vaccinate their kids — against COVID, polio, mumps, etc., — that’s their choice. Americans have a right to be wrong.

Just don’t visit your wrongheadedness upon the rest of the nation. If you’re a science-denier mid-pandemic, maybe America isn’t for you. So, if you’d be so kind, please let the door hit you in the ass on your way out to the grave, because my boot won’t reach that far.

Heard Immunity

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – JULY 20: Anti-vaccine protesters demonstrate outside 2019 Comic-Con International on July 20, 2019 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)

My mom finally dumped the tax preparer she employed for the past five years, thank god.

I’d pleaded with her since she moved to South Carolina to give the accountant, an old family friend, the ax after Mom said she was still paying taxes in Georgia “because Robin said that’s where my pension was based.”

But I finally won my case this year, when Mom passed along that Robin — and her mother — said they weren’t going to get a COVID vaccine “because it alters your DNA.”

“They should be so lucky,” I scoffed. I then argued why that opinion mattered. “How would you feel if you knew your pilot felt the same way?” I asked. “Do you really want someone in charge of your fate, financial or physical, if they don’t believe in science?”

Then I stumbled upon a jarring two-month study that confirmed my mother’s accountant was hardly unique. Last week, the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a detailed report on anti-vaxxer disinformation on social media. The report found that up to 65 percent of “anti-vaccine content” on Facebook and Twitter originated from twelve influencers within the anti-vaxxer movement. 

Entitled The Disinformation Dozen, the CCDH tracked 425 social media accounts supporting anti-vaxxer theories on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The accounts racked up 59.2 million followers in December — an increase of 877,000 more than they had in June.

Moreover, the analysis of 689,000 “anti-vaccine comment” posts found that about 73 percent of the content came from the Disinformation Dozen.

Regardless of your take on vaccines, I recommend reading the report, because its got some damning information, including a detailed indictment of the 12.

Atop the list is Joseph Mercola, “a successful anti-vaccine entrepreneur, peddling dietary supplements and false cures as alternatives to vaccines.” Mercola, whose accounts remains active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, has around 3.6 million followers. Among is cure-alls is a “Hydrogen Peroxide Nebulization” therapy to fight coronavirus.

Joseph Mercola

Second on the list is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Children’s Health Defense (CHD), one of five organizations CCDH identifies as an anti-vaxxer group. Emblazoned atop CHD website is a garish promotion of its latest feature, Medical Racism: The New Apartheid.

From CHD website

Given the difficulty of getting communities of color to trust the medical community — particularly vaccinations — is it any wonder why we are still losing 1,000 people daily to the pandemic? The list includes authors, website founders and an alternative medicines physician. It’s a rogue’s gallery of swindlers, charlatans and the factually-challenged.

What’s impressive about the report is that it offers, like the vaccination, a path forward. Namely, de-platforming, which has become an invaluable tool in modulating — and moderating — the national blood pressure. That’s bad news for panic porn outlets like CNN, which has seen a 45% drop in viewership since Trump was knocked off his soapbox. But when’s the last time your stomach churned from the latest lie posted by Agent Orange?

Its recommendations:

  • Establish a clear threshold for enforcement action (such as a “two-strikes” rule on accuracy).
  • Display corrective posts to users exposed to disinformation.
  • Add warning screens when users click links to misinformation sites.
  • Institute an Accountability Application Programming Interface (API) to make the AI of social media platforms more effective.
  • Ban private and secret anti-vaccine Facebook groups.

Then of course, there’s the hard way forward: through. When COVID was hurtling past a quarter-million Americans dead on its way beyond a half-million, the right brayed about the need for herd immunity. Some folks, they bloviated, may have to risk death and go back to school or work for the greater good. That was before we had vaccination options.

Now that they’re here, perhaps what we need is heard immunity. A salvo in the “Well, that’s what I hear” defense against the progress of science and emperical evidence. It helped inoculate many of us against the Big Lie, though not entirely. Dominion’s billion-dollar lawsuits against the most egregious misinformers will cull some of that herd.

Which brings us back to Mom’s H&R Blockhead accountant. According to the CCHD study, about 1 in 6 Americans prefer ignorance over information, feelings over fact. That’s means about 17% of this country doesn’t believe in advancement.

That sounds about right.