

Reddit still has plenty of anti-vaccine content across its site, which reaches over 50 million daily active users. "It really hits home when you literally see yourself in these people," she said. Ostrowski said the harrowing stories of death among the unvaccinated have had a major impact on her. in March 2020, over 722,000 American have died from Covid-19. will need as much as 90% of the population to get vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity. Experts, including White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Only 57% of the country has been vaccinated, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 22% of Americans self-identify as anti-vaxxers, according to an academic study published in May. President Joe Biden said as recently as last month, "This is a continuing pandemic of the unvaccinated." With multiple vaccines having been available for months for anyone 12 or older, vaccine resistance has become the central challenge to ending Covid-19. Facebook, in particular, has struggled to weed out false content, with users sharing misinformation even in the comments section of posts from authoritative sources, according to internal company documents reviewed last month by the Wall Street Journal. So no, I was done playing."ĭuring the pandemic, social media sites turned into a haven for misinformation and conspiracy theories, whether related to masks, the vaccines or advice from public health experts. "I clean a public restroom for Christ's sake. "If dad thinks I'm an idiot because I fell for the government and I'm a sheep, so be it," Ostrowski said.

Ostrowki said she'd eventually seen enough. The name of the subreddit refers to former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died from Covid-19 in July 2020, after refusing to wear a mask and attending a Donald Trump re-election campaign event. Reddit users upload screenshots multiple times a day of people who previously posted anti-vaccine comments and content on Facebook only to end up getting sick with Covid-19 before dying. It's a grim section of the app dedicated to showing visitors the real-life consequences of being unvaccinated and catching the coronavirus. Ostrowski, who regularly scrolls through her feed on social media site Reddit, stumbled upon the forum r/HermanCainAward. Even though you know the answer is wrong you're still going to say it just to fit in or conform." "It's almost like a groupthink kind of thing. "You care about what your parents think of you and whether or not they think that you're making a good decision or the right decision," Ostrowski said. She also worried about potential side effects forcing her to take time off work.Īnd then there were her parents, who were constantly spouting anti-vaccine rhetoric, warning her that she would die if she got the shot. She was hesitant about the mRNA technology used to develop the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.

She was concerned about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine causing blood clots, as had been reported in a few recipients.
