Mixed Reactions to COVID Anti-Vaxxer Deaths: Study on Political Affiliation and Moral Judgment

In Spain there were four million people over 12 years of age (4,320,000) who they were not vaccinated in 2021. The Carlos III Health Institute conducted a survey among unvaccinated people and 60% maintained that they would not be vaccinated in the future, while 40% left it up in the air. 72% of those not vaccinated cited distrust of the vaccine as the reason for having developed very fast. “It’s not that we’re 5G conspiracy. If we thought we were safe from Covid, we would have been vaccinated,” said this anti-vaccine group. And in a way, denialism is not the usual trend among this population group. Only 12% thought that “coronavirus does not exist”.

In recently developed research in the US, it has been seen that when people who publicly reject COVID-19 vaccines later die from the disease, the general population has mixed reactions to it. In this work, the attitude of the deniers with those vaccinated is compared and their political affiliation is taken into account.

In Spain there were four million people over the age of 12 (4,320,000) who were not vaccinated in 2021

The study was published on July 22, 2023 in the journal New Media & Society. was inspired by the “Herman Cain Award” forum (called the subreddit) on the social networking site reddit. The Herman Cain Awards are presented at “reddit.com/r/hermancainaward” to people who share misinformation about COVID-19 on social media (RS) and subsequently die from the disease. Moral judgment predictions of affective disposition theory were used with respect to message and audience factors and theorizing of Schadenfreude (JM Manzano. Nuevatribuna May 25, 2023), to explain the reactions to similar publications by RS. Herman Cain was a Republican politician who contracted COVID-19 and died, and whose social media accounts continued to spread misinformation about COVID-19 after his death. On the reddit forum, people share stories of anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers who have died from the disease.

All participants were shown a series of simulated Facebook status updates that mimicked the actual posts found on the Herman Cain Award subreddit. The status updates were from a person going by the name Terry Adams, with the gender intentionally not specified.

In the first Facebook post, Terry first expressed uncertainty about the COVID-19 vaccine and then dogmatically opposed the vaccine. In this case, all participants, including Republicans and Democrats, liked Terry better when he was less opinionated and only expressed uncertainty about the vaccine.

But in later posts, when Terry contracted COVID-19 and became seriously ill, differences emerged in how people reacted to Terry, depending on whether he was sorry he didn’t get the vaccine or reaffirmed his decision not to use it. Democrats had more negative evaluations of Terry than Republicans. In addition, vaccinated participants, regardless of their political party, also had less positive evaluations when Terry reaffirmed his decision not to receive the vaccine. Republicans were more in agreement with Terry continuing to question the vaccine and more negative than Democrats when Terry regretted not getting the vaccine.

The study results suggest that most people don’t like anti-vaxxers to die, even if they think they deserve it.

In the final Facebook post, Terry’s brother announced that Terry had died of COVID-19. Study participants were asked how “satisfied” they were with Terry’s death. In general, participants were more satisfied with his death when Terry held anti-vaccination views until death.

Vaccinated participants were more satisfied with Terry’s death than unvaccinated participants, and Democrats were more satisfied than Republicans.

But neither group showed high levels of satisfaction with the results. Participants rated their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being the most satisfied. The median score was 2.93 for Democrats, compared to 2.51 for Republicans.

The researchers also asked participants to rate how happy they were with Terry’s death, a question that was aimed at getting at the German concept of “schadenfreude,” defined as “feelings of pleasure that a person experiences in response to failures or misfortunes of another person”.

Participants rated their happiness on a scale of 0 to 6, with six being the happiest. The results showed that even participants who thought Terry deserved death had an average happiness rating of just 1.6 on the scale, compared to 0.54 for those who thought Terry deserved a full recovery. “We saw a moral judgment from those who thought Terry deserved some level of suffering or death, and wanted justice done, or at least what they considered justice, but even they didn’t express much happiness over Terry’s death.” the authors state.

Most people in the study have a feeling that anti-vaxxers acted immorally and perhaps put others at risk

Overall, the results suggest that most people don’t like anti-vaxxers to die, even if they think they deserve it. What’s more, a feeling that anti-vaxxers acted immorally and perhaps put others at risk. And because of that, they deserve a certain level of suffering. But even those who judge these anti-vaxxers most harshly generally don’t rejoice in their suffering or death.

Key data from the study:

1. The study found that political affiliation and vaccination status influenced people’s responses to anti-vaccination who contracted and potentially died of COVID-19, and Democrats and vaccinated people were more likely to perceive these cases as deserved .

2. Despite differences in perception, most participants across the political spectrum expressed hope that the anti-vaxxer would make a full recovery from the disease.

3. Although the participants exhibited moral judgment towards those who resisted vaccination, they generally did not express happiness at their death, demystifying the “schadenfreude” effect,

Finally, share this reflection of Mahatma Gandhi: “Don’t let the sun die without your grudges having died.”