My point is that these things are reflections of society (civilization?) as a whole. If society is being fractionated, you'll see it with vitamins and vaccines. From what I've seen, few things haven't seen some amount of fractionation for my whole life.
It doesn't really matter whether or not any of this stuff works if the establishment isn't widely considered to be legitimate. You will inevitably end up with two camps, or possibly an entire loss of control. The point of actually doing things to instill confidence is to give few to no reasons for society to fractionate down the middle.
Like, if you want people to take vaccination seriously, you probably don't want to tell the public you won't take the vaccine because you don't like the current president. You also probably want to level with them and at least tell them some of the truth as opposed to using omission and indirection, and no coercion, to get them to do what you want them to do. Oh, and it would also be a good idea to not villainize skeptics, because there will always be people who are wrong, instead favoring giving them reason to come to your side.
All of the above that I just mentioned happened, at least in the United States. It's not hard to find sound-bites of establishment top-brass saying that they wouldn't take the vaccines because they didn't trust Trump. When people on both sides see this indignance and then see these politicians make a complete 180 once they've restored their power, why in the hell would you expect anyone to trust them with their health? A skeptical person is going to start wondering what else those politicians have lied about and why the establishment health experts haven't told people to improve their health as part of the fight against the pandemic. If mainstream news comes out trying to downplay Vitamin D, they might think "heck, if they're saying that then I should probably believe the opposite".
I'm sure I'll be misunderstood by what I've said there, but hopefully someone reads this and considers it if they haven't before. I've never been anti-vaccine, and if I ever said anything in the past that came off that way, either I misspoke or I was wrong.
And how it is only democrats who are responsible for some anti-vaccine claims despite massive anti-vaccine, anti-masks campaigns from republican politicians.
In terms of the OG anti-vaxxers, I agree that they did and perhaps do still play a significant role in fostering distrust. In my opinion, that's just too easy a point to make. Did I really need to make a point about it? It's not really a controversial opinion to state on HN that people who are out of touch with reality share responsibility for vaccine hesitancy.
What's more important is that we recognize that this issue doesn't exist in isolation. I do not buy that the extreme anti-vaxxers share the bulk of responsibility here. The authorities had a chance to get everyone on board, and they totally blew it. Anti-vaxxers could have not existed before this pandemic and they would have still been created as a part of the radical shifts in global societies and how power structures have used tactics that appear to rather intentionally create divisions.
> And how it is only democrats who are responsible for some anti-vaccine claims despite massive anti-vaccine, anti-masks campaigns from republican politicians.
Yes, that is true, and I corrected myself before I even saw your comment.
And in subsequent analysis you completely ignore active and large campaigns to make people distrust vaccines or that covid exists.
> The point of actually doing things to instill confidence is to give few to no reasons for society to fractionate down the middle.
The expectation is that group you dislike for unrelated reasons have to be perfect. The group you like for unrelated reasons is not responsible for anything they say or do.
> do not buy that the extreme anti-vaxxers share the bulk of responsibility here
People believing anti-vaxxers are responsibility of loud anti-vaxxers. There was no magic happening, it was people believing what those said.
> The authorities had a chance to get everyone on board, and they totally blew it.
Large political movements were anti vaccers for political reasons. There was no chance to get everyone on board, when actual politicians and party operatives actively openly and frequently opposed vaccines.
And your analysis completely misses these people.
If we had a campaign of "do your part, eat right, get some walking in, and help the fight against COVID", I'd be like "Hell yeah! Now's our chance to see if we can beat this thing! Get the vaccines, get healthy, and join the fight!"
And now look. :(
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/09/fitness-companies-surge-in-d...
I've come across some data supposedly contesting the idea that obesity is a big driver in hospitalizations, but I'm not sure how much I buy it yet, and it certainly doesn't seem like a good reason to just do nothing at all.
The way life is right now I wouldn't really have any interest in reaching my pension age anyway as there's not much to do.
But promoting this in a situation where people have less motivation is not really going to help. Once the pandemic is over and we can live life again I'll think about it.
But depression factors into it majorly for me and I've been more depressed than ever.