[opinion] The Politics of Global Vaccine Hesitancy

 

Photo by RF._.studio

When the first Covid 19 vaccines came out, there was much doubt about their efficacy even within medical communities. With more testing, data aggregation, and trend analysis, the global scientific community came more and more into an agreement about the effectiveness of vaccines. Data has also shown that unvaccinated people are at a higher risk of developing severe complications. 

Despite glaring data and information, a big section of the global population is unsure about vaccines. Some take it a step further and declare that vaccines are indeed ploys from governments to increase surveillance. Apart from such wild claims, there have other anti-vaccine arguments that have some validity in select cases. But the politics of global vaccination does not deal with scientific data alone. Vaccines have increasingly become a left-wing vs right-wing issue. Nowhere is it more evident than in the United States. Many right-wing leaders have raised suspicion over vaccines, and some have openly refused to take them. 

The left-wing, on the other hand, is making this a political issue to undermine their opposing ideology. Instead of promoting education and a globally shared understanding of vaccines, the conflict has become more of ideologies. By giving vaccines a political color, the debate is now as much political as it is scientific.