Anti-vaxxers in Europe feed on distrust of govt, conspiracy theories
The Straits Times|November 25, 2021
Officials have hard time fighting fake claims as politicians capitalise on issue
Jonathan Eyal
Anti-vaxxers in Europe feed on distrust of govt, conspiracy theories

As tens of thousands of people take to the streets in major European cities to protest against vaccine mandates and other measures designed to contain the fourth wave of Covid-19 infections on the continent, the task of identifying the anti-vaccine organisations responsible for organising these violent protests to neutralise their impact is now an urgent challenge for most European governments.

But that is not easy since the anti-vaxxers – as they are popularly known – draw support from a variety of trends, some of which are particular to each individual European country.

What can be said is that the antivaccination movement as a whole feeds on a wider distrust of governments and on broader conspiracy theories peddled mostly by far-right organisations.

Most of these movements frame their opposition to vaccines as part of what they claim is their fight for the rights of individuals against the supposedly all-powerful state.

And, for obvious reasons, they are not very keen to engage in discussions about how they propose to manage the current pandemic.

The strongest opposition to vaccines is in one region that very rarely features in media reports: south-eastern Europe, and particularly Romania and Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest states.

This story is from the November 25, 2021 edition of The Straits Times.

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This story is from the November 25, 2021 edition of The Straits Times.

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