There are structural reasons people are swayed by anti-vaccine propaganda. Sneering at the unvaccinated won’t solve them.

This summer, the lines at vaccination centers suddenly got shorter. After a few desperate months of shot chasing and limited supply, it seemed (especially to well-resourced, privileged people) as though anyone in the U.S. who wanted a Covid-19 vaccine could get one without much trouble—and that the only barriers to widespread protection were personal choices.

The mood toward the unvaccinated began to shift. If they haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, that’s their problem, friends told me. I don’t want to wear a mask to protect other people if they won’t protect themselves. Then, Covid-19 cases began spiking throughout the country, and new evidence emerged that the vaccines don’t protect against infection from the delta variant as well as against other variants. They are still highly effective against hospitalization and death, but even so, the murmur became a roar: The unvaccinated aren’t just threatening their health, they’re threatening ours as well. Read more at The New Republic.