The Anger Stage

The psychology driving the virus scare appears to be following the five stages of grief, as I predicted back in August. The vaccinated are transitioning from denial to anger. Their rants are getting louder. They blame the unvaccinated for their misery.

This explains a passive aggressive post that came up on my Facebook wall yesterday. It alleged that the unvaccinated are filling up hospitals. However, there was no data to support this claim. The post was nothing more than an anecdotal utterance from some anonymous nurse.

Rational discourse with such people is futile. But there were nevertheless two well written rebuttals. One pointed out that the post was anecdotal, and that facts aren't backing up the claim. The other one pointed out the lack of political will to invest more in health care. None of them bothered to provide links. The information is available to anyone who chooses to look. There's no point in providing links to people who refuse to see.

My first reaction was to do nothing. There's no point in angering those who're already angry. However, after some reflection, I thought of something that might help my friend transition from the anger stage to the bargaining stage. It might even help others in his position to move one step forward.

I pointed out the undeniable fact that the vaccine needs a booster every six months, and that the number of vaccinated people will go down unless everyone takes both the vaccine and the boosters. Seeing that only 70% of the vaccinated are prepared to take the booster, we're likely to have less than 50% vaccinated in a year from now.

I made no value statement related to this, so my friend can read it without feeling angry at me. However, it underscores the fact that the vaccination program is doomed to failure unless we make vaccines compulsory.

My friend is no fan of compulsion, so I assume that he's going to be against such a solution. The only way to save his failed project will be to plead with people, which would mean a transition from anger to bargaining. The same goes for any other of my pro-vaccine friends who realizes the depth of the problem before them.

My comment was designed to induce a feeling of helplessness among the vaccinated, and in this way discourage them from taking the booster. People are reluctant to join lost causes, and will abandon them once they realize their futility. My guess is that no-one will be inclined to take the third booster when it becomes available in a year from now because it will be clear by then that the campaign has been a failure.

Headache

By Phee - Pixabay, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link