Fighting for Infection as if it were Wellness: On the Anti-Vax Moment

There was a moment in the beginning of the COVID pandemic when I thought to myself that surely this would be the end of the anti-vaccination movement. It is one thing to be against vaccines when diseases are rare, and pandemics a distant memory, but another to be against them in the midst of a pandemic in which tens of thousands were dying each week in the US alone. The anti-vax position always seemed like a luxury position, a position of privilege, an individual refusing vaccines is taking advantage of the fact that others are vaccinated around them and cases are rare. Like many things in US politics and culture, individual autonomy is made possible by the existence and occlusion of collective action. It is for that reason that I thought such a position would collapse in the face of an actual pandemic.