Editorial: Just when it seemed the anti-vax movement was dead, it rises anew

But no. The movement has united with promoters of wild government conspiracy theories in organizing protests to reopen state economies, leading to a resurgence of uninformed assertions that vaccines are the problem rather than the cure.

In other countries, such as France, the force of logic has proven irresistible to even the most ardent anti-vaccination advocates. The tsunami of death and suffering brought on by the coronavirus pandemic has scared former protesters to their senses. International surveys by the Vaccine Confidence Project indicate the ranks of opponents to immunization are in steep decline in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Austria and Italy.

“If a vaccine were made available tomorrow, everyone would jump to get it,” author Laurent-Henri Vignaud, who closely monitors the anti-vaccination movement in France, told Reuters.

But a May 1 protest outside the state capitol in Sacramento, California, wound up merging anti-vax activists with opponents of continued stay-at-home restrictions. It was organized by the Freedom Angels Foundation, an anti-vaccination movement. “The State of California is tyrannically destroying the California economy, livelihoods and the Constitutional Rights of HEALTHY free Californians!!!” an online rally-registration form declared.

Some protest signs did mention Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-at-home orders. But others ranted about the dangers of vaccines and raised alarms about contact-tracing efforts used by medical authorities to alert people who might have been exposed to a known coronavirus patient.

In one car at the protest, two flags supporting President Donald Trump’s reelection in 2020 protruded from the front windows while a woman held up a sign reading, “No mandatory vaccines.” The group’s Facebook page includes an all-capital letters declaration, “Real pandemics don’t require: Faulty virus models. Rigged test result. Inaccurate reporting. Manipulated death statistics.” In smaller print, it concludes, “But psychological operations do …”

The Facebook site carries a bizarre array of conspiracy-based paranoia, such as: “Yes to freedom. No to censorship. No to surveillance. No to 5G” — a reference to the myth that 5G antennas are somehow transmitting the virus. In Britain, 5G conspiracy believers have tried to burn down cellphone towers in response.

In case you haven’t spotted the trend here, the thinking goes like this: The dark forces of a massive government conspiracy — utilizing a vast 5G-vaccination-pandemic-surveillance network — is behind the plot to control our minds and make us all submit to the tyranny of confinement to our living room couches.

Although protective masks are hard to spot at anti-government rallies in California, Kentucky, Nevada, Florida and Michigan, there’s no shortage of Trump 2020 hats and banners. Perhaps that’s the most telling sign of all.