Not as stupid as the guy covered in someone's possibly HIV infected spit.
I live in a world where people are innocent until proven guilty, people are all generally trying to do the right thing, the average man on the street doesn't like physically hitting other people, and most people don't have deadly diseases, and that the ones that do don't spit.
I believe you are correct. I have no clue whether vaksel is American, but I do think Americans (I'm one) have absorbed--been fed?--a fair amount of hooey about HIV transmission and how to be "safe." Keep in mind, if you're old enough, AIDS was/is "that gay disease" and something quite a small number of injecting druggies were getting--as the "need" for a War on Drugs was building. I'm sorry to report, Americans are a fearful lot.
I think most humans are irrationally fearful about things like HIV.