Getting Michiganders to take COVID-19 vaccine: ‘My trust just isn’t there’ – Bridge Michigan

In the meantime, the Internet continues to be fertile ground for dark warnings, misinformation and ungrounded conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and plans for a vaccine potentially driving down the numbers of those who would get a shot.

A Pew Research Center survey in late June asked people if they had heard the theory that the COVID-19 outbreak itself was planned by people in power. Seventy-one percent of U.S. adults said yes. A third of those respondents said it was "definitely" or "probably" true.

In a common version of this discredited theory, the pandemic is a global plan hatched by elites such as Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates to implant tracking chips along with vaccinations that would be activated by 5G cellular technology. Its been widely shared on platforms like Facebook.

The postings gained enough media attention to prompt Gates to deny any such sinister plot.

"I've never been involved in any sort of microchip-type thing, he said in a call with reporters. "It's almost hard to deny this stuff because it's so stupid or strange."

Another theory puts Dr. Fauci at the heart of the conspiracy, falsely claiming he was in a 2015 photo at a Chinese lab in Wuhan along with President Barack Obama. The photo was taken at a lab in Maryland.

Michigan United for Liberty, the group that hosted an April 30 Lansing protest against Gov. Gretchen Whitmers stay-at-home order, is raising the alarm as well about a COVID-19 vaccine.

Michigan United for Liberty organizer Alex Larner, identified on the groups website as secretary of the Eaton County Tea Party, has used his personal Facebook page to share unfounded conspiracy videos on the fake science behind the fear mongering of the WuFlu.

The end goal of the WuFlu pandemic is mandatory vaccines, Larner wrote May 9.

Warren resident Diane Barnes supports the aims of Michigan for Vaccine Choice, which lobbies for the right of parents to opt out of vaccines for their children.

Its one strand of a broader anti-vaccine movement that may have paved the way for a 2014 outbreak of whooping cough at a Traverse City charter school that spawned more than 150 suspected cases. It was tied to parents wary of vaccinations, as 17 percent of kindergartners had parents who signed waivers exempting their children from immunizations.

In 2014, Michigan had the fourth highest rate of unvaccinated kindergartners in the nation. State law at that time required parents to immunize school-age kids against communicable diseases such as measles, whooping cough, mumps and tetanus unless they received a waiver that allowed them to opt out for medical, religious or philosophical reasons.

To reduce the number of waivers, MDHHS in 2015 mandated that parents who want to opt out for non-medical reasons must sit down with a local health worker for an educational session on vaccine-preventable diseases before obtaining a waiver. In the first year after that rule was enacted, MDHHS reported the number of statewide waivers dropped by 35 percent as child vaccination rates began to rise.

Barnes told Bridge shes not persuaded that COVID-19 is part of any global vaccine plot orchestrated by Gates and Fauci.

Im not buying into that, she said.

But she said she has no intention of getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Johnson, of Grand Rapids, said her reluctance goes beyond her fear that the medical community may be tempted to cut corners in the quest to approve a vaccine.

She said shes troubled by the political environment, magnified by her view of President Trumps handling of the pandemic.

I just dont trust him, she said. I think hes a liar.

Sitting at a table at a Grand Rapids park with a friend, Gerard Mayweather had more stoic reasons for opting out of a COVID-19 vaccine. Its not because, as an African American, he believes the government is somehow conspiring against him.

I just think getting the virus is inevitable, he said.

Do I wear a mask? Do I wash my hands? Yes, he said.

But the way this goes, I think its inevitable I will get it. I had cancer twice and Im all right. I refuse to be a prisoner to this.

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Getting Michiganders to take COVID-19 vaccine: 'My trust just isn't there' - Bridge Michigan