WHow can you NOT get vaccinated?! Since the corona vaccines were developed, some vaccinated people have been upset that some people are avoiding the syringe. They have no understanding for vaccination skepticism and the fear of side effects or long-term effects. For them, anyone who doesn’t get vaccinated is a fool – and antisocial to boot. It’s better not to deal with people like that. Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark have examined the extent of prejudice and the resulting discrimination that has built up between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in 21 countries from a wide variety of cultures during the pandemic. In all countries, the majority of people were already vaccinated at the time of the survey. The unvaccinated were in the minority – and were extremely discriminated against. The exclusion was particularly severe in cultures in which cooperation has a high priority.
Unvaccinated people were even more discriminated against than is observed with other victims of discrimination – such as migrants, minorities or convicted criminals. The researchers explain this in the journal “Nature” with the psychology of cooperation: According to this, those who are not committed to the common good (in this case it was to get the pandemic under control with vaccination) are excluded as free riders. Parallel to this marginalization in the normal population, the elites of many countries morally appealed for vaccination, there was political pressure to make everyday life more difficult for the unvaccinated – for example by only allowing vaccinated people to enter restaurants. Discrimination against the unvaccinated was only less severe in the two traditionally vaccine-skeptical countries of Hungary and Romania – or the understanding of their skepticism was apparently greater.