6 Feet & Grieving
Innosanto Nagara
Digital print, 2020
Oakland, CA
This week marks the four-year anniversary of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. CSPG's Poster of the Week emphasizes the importance of getting vaccinated and trusting scientists and medical professionals, and to honor the more than seven million lives lost worldwide due to Covid-19 – over one million deaths in just the United States.
On March 11, 2020, the World Health organization declared the COvid-19 virus outbreak a pandemic, on March 14th the Trump administration declared Covid-19 a nationwide emergency and issued a travel ban for non-U.S. citizens. By late December 2020, the death toll in the U.S> surpassed 300,000. That same month, the Covid vaccine became available.
Since then, the anti-science and anti-vaccination movements have exploded – staging rallies, spreading misinformation about vaccines, and filing lawsuits against lawmakers. Exposure to misinformation about Covid-19, symptoms of the infection, testing opportunities, and prevention methods lead to erroneous assumptions of viral threat, maladaptive coping behaviors, and had a range of fatal consequences. Anti-vaccination groups have utilized social media to spread pseudo-scientific information about the Covid-19, measles, flu, rubella, and chickenpox vaccines. These groups often cite medical risks, including autism as a potential consequence of vaccination, and include general distrust of science and pharmaceuticals companies. As a result of disinformation, the death rate in the U.S. from Covid-19 is the highest per capita than any other large, high-income country.
Anti-vaccination movements are hurtful not only to the unvaccinated, but for those who are vaccinated, since the prevention of many diseases like Covid-19 rely on herd immunity. Unfortunately, an estimated 30% of the U.S. population remains unvaccinated or undervaccinated against Covid. Do your part, get vaccinated!
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