Studies Reveal Negative Attitudes Toward the Unvaccinated— Polarizing views on COVID vaccination status poses risk to pandemic management, researchers say

The magnitude of prejudice and aversion against individuals refusing COVID-19 vaccination was detailed in three studies spanning 21 countries.

In data from the U.S., vaccinated people were 16 percentage points (95% CI 14-19) more likely to have antipathy toward those who remain unvaccinated than toward the vaccinated.

"Incompetence" was endorsed 14 percentage points more often and "untrustworthy" 13 percentage points more often by the vaccinated about the unvaccinated, Michael Bang Petersen, PhD, of Aarhus University in Denmark, and colleagues reported in Natureopens in a new tab or window.

"The conflict between those who are vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not threatens societal cohesion as a new socio-political cleavage," co-author Alexander Bor, PhD, of Aarhus University, said in a press release. "The vaccinated clearly seem to be the ones deepening this rift."

Unlike the attitudes expressed by vaccinated persons, the study authors did not find that unvaccinated people expressed discriminatory attitudes toward vaccinated people (with the exception of some negativity among unvaccinated respondents in Germany and the U.S.). "But we do not find statistical evidence in favor of negative stereotyping or exclusionary attitudes," the study authors noted.

In these situations when people feel they have made a sacrifice to get vaccinated in part to protect others, they may have a strong reaction to those who are not willing to do the same -- "what they perceive as free-riding on a public good," Petersen warned in a press release. But this could have "severe consequences for society."

"In the short run, prejudice toward the unvaccinated may complicate pandemic management because it leads to mistrust, and we know that mistrust hinders vaccination uptake," he said. "In the long run, it may mean that societies leave the pandemic more divided and polarized than when they entered it."

Punitive public policy is not necessarily effective, the researchers argued, and can create a "cleavage" between members of society with different attitudes. They cited the example of French President Emmanuel Macron, who said he wanted to "piss off" the unvaccinated population to a degree that will make them get vaccinated.

"While moralistic communication of collective responsibilities may be an effective strategy to increase vaccination uptake, such strategies may have unintended negative consequences in the form of eliciting prejudice, especially in cultures with strong cooperative norms," Petersen and co-authors wrote, which "may have negative long-term effects ... hurting well-being, eroding identification with majority society, and breeding mistrust of the state, including health authorities."

However, the language used in the study, including the word "prejudice" and "discrimination" may evoke the wrong public reactions to the information, commented Maxwell Smith, PhD, a public health ethicist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario.

"You can be exclusionary for the right reasons, or bad reasons," he told MedPage Today in an interview.

"Consider whether we'd say women who refuse to have sex with men who are unwilling to wear a condom have 'exclusionary attitudes' or that they're being 'punitive.' No, we wouldn't," Smith said. "It's fine to want to protect your health, and there are scientific reasons to believe ... condom-wearing will protect your health."

He expressed concern that people might take certain findings from the study out of context to suggest this form of discrimination is "just as bad" as other discrimination, whereas "there is no suggestion that it's morally bad" to discriminate.

Peterson told MedPage Today that the reaction to the study on social media has perhaps added fuel to the divisiveness. Although the study "does not speak at all to the vaccination decision itself," he said that "we are seeing very strong endorsement from people who are skeptical of vaccination and so on."

Rather than using the results to debate vaccine attitudes, Smith said, the findings should help develop better public policy.

Peterson agreed that it's important to communicate to both groups in a way that decreases tension as much as possible and called on authorities to mitigate punitive attitudes.

Combining data from three studies involving 15,233 people from 21 countries, the researchers found that, around the world, vaccinated people were prejudiced against unvaccinated people.

In the U.S. specifically, the vaccinated were 10 percentage points (95% CI 8-12) less likely to respect an unvaccinated person's "right to residence," such as to live in their neighborhood, and 8 percentage points (95% CI 6-10) less likely to support an unvaccinated person's application for citizenship. They were 28 percentage points (95% CI 25-31) more likely to agree that the unvaccinated should have limited freedom of movement (for example, not being allowed to sit beside them on a bus).

Further, vaccinated persons were more likely to not respect unvaccinated people's freedom of speech (e.g., on social media) or support social assistance benefits for them (difference 7 percentage points for both, 95% CI 5-9).

The studies were conducted through experimental methods, including the use of the "Dictator Game," in which participants reported emotions and allocated resources accordingly. Questions were asked in different ways, such that participants were both asked to rate their agreement with statements like "I would be unhappy if this person married one of my close relatives" and were forced to respond to a decision scenario on the same issue.

The researchers noted that the experimental nature of the studies was a limitation. Also, since the studies were performed online, it's not clear to what degree their responses would carry through to real-world attitudes and actions.

Notably, the studies were conducted "while the vaccine-evading Omicron variant was dominant, and vaccine-induced immunity against infection spread was waning," the researchers noted.

Ingrid Hein is a staff writer for MedPage Today covering infectious disease. She has been a medical reporter for more than a decade. Follow

Who knows who is vaxed up and who isn’t.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

That is EXACTLY what should be the point .... but your status becomes public due to those stinkin’ mandates, employers jumped on board, and for those areas/countries with vax ‘passports, plus anything else “requiring” the vax (like travel, etc.).

We should have medical freedom to choose what goes in our own bodies. It should be PRIVATE information between a doctor and patient. The COVID crap went seriously off the rails .... mandates need to be outlawed, docs need to be free to treat patients individually & in the patient’s best interests, & there should be true informed consent ... for starters.

What I found interesting yet alarming, the way social media, the enemedia, Pharma ads, & the government engaged in psychological manipulation to coerce folks into getting the shots (do it for your community, do it for grandma, do it to go back to ‘normal’ ... it’s the only way, etc.), they made being ‘vaxed’ the “in club”, the righteous club, and the unvaxed who exercised what should be their choice/medical freedom were the “bad” club. So the vaxed were running around telling everyone they’d gotten their first shot, then the 2nd, then they were boosted and with the latest “I got my Omicron shot ... flu is next and I’m protected” (almost a direct quote). The “bandaid” on the arm was a symbol of being a ‘good’ person, virtue signalling if you will, while those that chose a different route were like lepers in the olden days.

Actor Tim Robbins Decries COVID-19 Sanctimony, Demonization of Vaccine Skeptics
epoch times ^ | 21 December A.D. 2022 | Michael Washburn
Posted on 12/21/2022, 4:23:30 PM by lightman

Renowned actor Tim Robbins told comedian Russell Brand during a podcast interview aired over the weekend that his views about COVID-19 restrictions completely changed when Robbins visited parts of the world where people publicly asserted their right to be free from masking, and that lockdown enforcers’ coercion, sanctimony, and demonization of those with different views have fed an atmosphere of tribalism and repression that is dangerous for civil society.

In conversation with Brand on the Dec. 18 episode of the comedian’s podcast, Robbins also voiced his dismay at official policies based on limited scientific studies that discouraged patterns of behavior that might have led to herd immunity, and thus arguably slowed the world’s emergence from the pandemic.

“We went into lockdown with healthy people, with children, and that didn’t seem to be wise to me,” Robbins told Brand. “As someone who is concerned about the result those doctrines, that policy had on us as human beings, it’s not good.”

The decision of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to adjust its protocol regarding virus outbreaks spurred further reflections on Robbins’s part. In the past, the longstanding policy had been to take care of the elderly and vulnerable and limit their exposure as much as possible, while allowing others to carry on with their normal activities in order to develop herd immunity.

But COVID-19 gave U.S. officials carte blanche to implement measures of social coercion and control that limited how everybody, including the healthiest and most-able bodies members of society as well as the young, was allowed to live.

“We turned into tribal, angry, vengeful people, and I don’t think that’s something that is sustainable for the earth, that we start demonizing people that don’t agree with our particular health policies and turn them into monsters, turn them into pariahs, and say that they don’t deserve a hospital bed,” Robbins said.

The hardening of the attitudes of lockdown proponents went so far that, when faced with any disagreement, they began to show an indifference and even contempt for the lives of those with different viewpoints.

“I think about people that have made bad mistakes in their lives, where they take too many drugs and they overdose. That’s totally their choice, that’s totally their responsibility. Yet we take care of them, yet we bring them to the hospital, yet we save their lives, because we’re compassionate, because we want to make sure that people live. And this turned, it turned into ‘You should [expletive] die because you have not complied.’ That’s incredibly dangerous,” Robbins said.

“The fact there were these changes of definitions … my alarm bells went off. I wondered, what is going on? What is beyond the very real idea of taking care of people and making sure that we don’t have a terrible death rate?”’

Official About-Face:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/actor-tim-robbins-decries-covid-19-sanctimony-demonization-of-vaccine-skeptics_4938196.html

” the study authors did not find that unvaccinated people expressed discriminatory attitudes toward vaccinated people”

I don’t believe that. Maybe it’s just an American phenomenon that vaccinated are labeled as unclean, tainted, contaminated, doomed, alien blood, etc. Otoh, the actual virus spike can attach and infect organs from heart to lung and can cause long-term damage

...” that the S protein can cause detrimental effects in COVID-19 patients independent of infection could partially explain the long-term health issues”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35348182/

In reality, the only ‘purebloods’ are those who’ve never had a cold or flu (or, for that matter, any disease at all) in their lifetimes. The flu virus, for instance, has spike proteins called hemagglutins and these spikes may be responsible for that flu that just seems to drag on and on (or that kills you). Flu shots may contain up to four different modified spike proteins to address the year’s circulating strains. But nobody has ever called those who get the flu or who get flu shots ‘contaminated’ and vice versa. The whole ‘pureblood’ thing is just narcisstic propaganda. If you catch covid, you’re exposed to spikes.

--- "It seems like some people do have negative attitudes towards the unvaccinated."

Of course. My point is that this :study" is social science aka politics masquerading as "science."

Of the article 9YearLurker has added: "Plus a deceptive writeup, citing only percentage differentials instead of actual percentages."

Well observed. The "science" being peddled has little to do with the actual "safe and effective" yet still in phase three clinical trials mRNA shots which this pseudoscience is trying to tell us is other than it is, and any of us who are skeptical are "vaccine hesitant." Never mind that the mRNA products do NOT meet the Koch postulates, do not prevent infection and allow reinfection even after boosters.

Looking for example at Michael Bang Petersen, one learns this "scientist" is in fact a political scientist, Not an epidemiologist. His CV at the university reads: "Michael Bang Petersen investigates how the adaptive challenges of human evolutionary history shape the way modern citizens think about mass politics. He directs The Politics and Evolution Lab...." These are the "scientists" busy with vaccine messaging in the midst of this "event" which has a demonstrable mortality rate of a mere 0.085 percent over three years.

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