I think distrust is a larger extant problem for a variety of reasons. Antivax is a manifestation of it, but not unique.
In my personal life, I was deeply affected by the guidance that was given by authorities on 9/11 re: evacuation. The decision made by the police was pragmatic “we don’t know the downside of evacuation, which creates more problems as the situation at ground level is bad”, but killed more people than it saved. I have a close friend who is alive today because he chose to ignore the instructions, and has suffered from survivors guilt for not taking more people with him.
My way of handling that is that I get well acquainted with my buildings and evacuation procedures, and get myself and my people out if anything happens, and don’t care about the PA. It’s a selfish position that may create more hazards to others, but that’s my position.
I think antivax and hesitancy is a similar attempt to address risk, but with an impact that mostly affects others. The same industry that gave you opioid addiction gives you a vaccine. The vocal anti-everything people are able to pull on that string of doubt.
>In my personal life, I was deeply affected by the guidance that was given by authorities on 9/11 re: evacuation. The decision made by the police was pragmatic “we don’t know the downside of evacuation, which creates more problems as the situation at ground level is bad”, but killed more people than it saved. I have a close friend who is alive today because he chose to ignore the instructions, and has suffered from survivors guilt for not taking more people with him.
The Grenfell Tower fire in London is another example of this. If you look at the official timelines for the fire; when the fire was reported, when the fire spread, when the fire started killing people, one thing becomes clear: if building evacuation had begun when the fire was reported, then few if any would have died.
Official instructions for people living in London highrises was, and to my knowledge still is, to stay put. The building only had one staircase and everybody rushing for it might have caused a stampede... except that was bad advice even so. The fire was called in at 0:54 and isn't known to have spread to another unit until 1:15, more than twenty minutes later. If a building wide fire alarm had triggered an evacuation at 0:54, there would have been plenty of time to get virtually everybody out through that single staircase. The first reports of people trapped by smoke arrived by 1:30, nearly 40 minutes after the fire was called in; 40 minutes after the general evacuation could have begun. A general evacuation was not called until 2:47, nearly two hours after the fire was called in. Two hours too late.
My two take-aways from this: I have a lot more trust in American fire codes, particularly an appreciation for the importance of running general evacuation drills twice a year (the whole building clears out easily in five minutes.) And secondly, that I would never trust the British government's recommendations in an emergency; I would look out for myself instead and evacuate immediately, damn the consequences.
In my personal life, I was deeply affected by the guidance that was given by authorities on 9/11 re: evacuation. The decision made by the police was pragmatic “we don’t know the downside of evacuation, which creates more problems as the situation at ground level is bad”, but killed more people than it saved. I have a close friend who is alive today because he chose to ignore the instructions, and has suffered from survivors guilt for not taking more people with him.
My way of handling that is that I get well acquainted with my buildings and evacuation procedures, and get myself and my people out if anything happens, and don’t care about the PA. It’s a selfish position that may create more hazards to others, but that’s my position.
I think antivax and hesitancy is a similar attempt to address risk, but with an impact that mostly affects others. The same industry that gave you opioid addiction gives you a vaccine. The vocal anti-everything people are able to pull on that string of doubt.