Discriminatory attitudes towards the unvaccinated akin to racism, xenophobia: research article

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An Aarhus Univeristy research team in Denmark led by Alexander Bor has recently undertaken a study of the relationship between those vaccinated against the COVID-19 and their unvaccinated compatriots in a number of countries. They published their findings in a summary peer-reviewed article in Nature (linked below). The findings are highly surprising to anyone who has followed the social media and gauged the situation as it relates to the topic: in most countries, the researchers discovered hostile attitude of the vaccinated cohort towards the unvaccinated, whereas, also in most countries, the unvaccinated people do not respond in kind.

The abstract reads as follows:

During the COVID-19 pandemic sizeable groups of unvaccinated minorities persist even in countries with high vaccine access1. Consequently, vaccination became a controversial subject of debate and even protest2. Here, we assess whether people express discriminatory attitudes in the form of negative affect, stereotypes and exclusionary attitudes in family and political settings across groups defined by COVID-19 vaccination status. We quantify discriminatory attitudes between vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens in 21 countries, covering a diverse set of cultures across the world. Across three conjoint experimental studies (N=15,233), we demonstrate that vaccinated people express discriminatory attitudes towards the unvaccinated, as high as the discriminatory attitudes suffered by common targets like immigrant and minority populations3,4.5. In contrast, there is an absence of evidence that unvaccinated individuals display discriminatory attitudes towards vaccinated people, except for the presence of negative affect in Germany and United States. We find evidence in support of discriminatory attitudes against the unvaccinated in all countries except Hungary and Romania and find that discriminatory attitudes are more strongly expressed in cultures with stronger cooperative norms. Prior research on the psychology of cooperation has shown that individuals react negatively against perceived free-riders6,7 including in the domain of vaccinations8,9. Consistent with this, the present findings suggest that contributors to the public good of epidemic control (i.e., the vaccinated) react with discriminatory attitudes against perceived free-riders (i.e., the unvaccinated). Elites and the vaccinated general public appealed to moral obligations to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake10,11 but the present findings suggest that discriminatory attitudes including support for the removal of fundamental rights simultaneously emerged.

The motive for the hostility towards, and dehumanization of, the unvaccinated is based on several assertions contained in the mainstream narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic. These assertions are that the unvaccinated are a threat to themselves as they are significantly more likely to end up severely ill with COVID, thus threatening the capability of the medical system to handle the load, and a threat to others as they are more likely to spread the virus to others. However, objective facts that have emerged by now point to neither of these assertions being factually accurate. Oddly, some of the most vaccinated communities, like the State of Vermont in the US, ended up being COVID hotspots, thus suggesting that the opposite may be the case.

Be that as it may, the hostility towards the unvaccinated, and the idea that they should be deprived of human rights like the right to work, travel, etc. is not based in fact. That means it is a prejudice. A prejudice which is just as rational as the racist prejudices and the idea that the unvaccinated need to be barred from boarding a train or entering a shop makes about as much sense as the infamous Nuremberg Laws of the Third Reich.

References

Discriminatory Attitudes Against the Unvaccinated During a Global Pandemic
Alexander Bor, Frederik Jørgensen and Michael Bang Petersen, Nature, 8 December 2022

COVID-19 vaccines: not effective, not long lasting, sometimes harmful
@borepstein , 25 July 2022

Majority of COVID deaths in the US are now in vaccinated people: The Washington Post
@borepstein , 24 November 2022

The Nuremberg Race Laws
Holocaust Encyclopedia

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Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 136 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!BEER
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I think you are right vaccinated and unvaccinated people's behavior are change. In Pakistan many don't be vaccinated and can't believe corona gives bad on his health now wear mask. Many people's things corona is bad and dengerous disease and follow the all spos.

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I don't know whether there is still a discrimination for unvaccinated people, but I think they did the right with not getting vaccination because there are many rumuors/proofs for post vaccination life like cloting, cerebral hemorrhage...

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Oh, yeah, these so-called vaccines are very far from safe.
Unfortunately, there is still discrimination against the unvaccinated. If I am not mistaken, unless you are a US citizen or permanent resident, you are not allowed to enter the US (legally) unless you are vaccinated.

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I had to look this up because I wasn't sure but it is still required for all non citizens to have proof of vaccination.

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Even for the Green Card holders?

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The CDC webpage was written in lawyer-talk and I only took a glance at it so I don't recall. Green Card holders might get an exemption seeing as how they already had to jump through a ton of hoops to acquire that document.

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