You may have noticed throughout this pandemic that there are certain recurring themes in anti-vaxx memes. If you frequent Sorry AntiVaxxer, the Herman Cain Award or Covid Ate My Face subreddits, probably you know what I’m referring to.
There have been plentiful statistical studies on the demographics of vaccine refusal that we won’t get into here, as interpretation of those results would take up the entire article, or several.
Rather, this article will be a showcase of anti-vaxx memes posted by white American Christians totally confident that they were under supernatural protection from the creator of the universe, who nevertheless contracted Covid and died from it.
In every case the memes presented alongside later posts announcing illness and death were posted by the same user, or their surviving family members, reproduced here with permission from /u/ganon. All faces have been obscured in compliance with the Medium TOS.
The names are censored but color coded, so you know who posted which memes and who family members are referring to, post-mortem. The format, left to right, first depicts memes posted by the subject, followed by notice of their death to covid or entry to the ICU.
You may notice a lot of the same memes showing up in multiple posts. This is because just 12 people, who the media have deemed the “disinformation dozen”, are behind 65% of anti-vaxx memes that appear on social media. I confess that I’ve authored a few myself in order to persuade stubborn dummies to stay out of hospitals, in order to free up beds for the immunocompromised. Of course for legal reasons I won’t say which specific memes.
It’s equal parts impressive and disappointing that these people persist in their belief that prayer has protective or healing powers even after declaring confidently that it would save their loved ones just days before they post the inevitable death notice. Before you say “But Covid has a 99.8% survival rate!” no it doesn’t, that’s the CDC figure for children under 10.
“Okay but the survival rate for my age group is like 97%” which is true, but these are all people who caught it bad enough to go to the ICU. Once that happens, the odds of recovery plummet. Almost nobody who goes on the ventilator ever leaves the hospital, except in a refrigerated truck.
The average survival rate also doesn’t apply to you if you have several comorbidities, which most of these people did. There’s a running joke on the Herman Cain Award subreddit about being a fat white man with a goatee dooming you from the start, as it seems to be a recurring style among anti-vaxxers who succumb to Covid.
These are people who decry socialism before they fall ill, then make a GoFundMe begging for strangers to pay their medical expenses afterward. “Nothing matters until it personally affects me” seems to be their mantra, no doubt also why this same group votes against climate action, and the very single payer healthcare which would’ve prevented their families from being saddled with ruinously steep medical bills.
When the working poor vote against single payer healthcare because right wing media mouthpieces owned by billionaires tell them it’s socialism, and instead rely on their imaginary security blanket for protection which those same mouthpieces assure them will be sufficient, who benefits?
Hopefully these brutal, tragic experiences open their eyes somewhat. The last time the public relied entirely on thoughts and prayers for protection from a pandemic, half of Europe died. One of the results was a widespread loss of faith. If the same results from Covid deaths, perhaps even mushroom clouds have a silver lining.