For many Americans, the booster promoters have, ironically, stoked skepticism through their heavy-handed mandates, shaming, and censorship. The outrage and propaganda directed at anything that might cast doubt on the vaccine or other pandemic mitigation measures has had exactly the opposite effect that the scolds intended.

To illustrate, imagine you had to buy the vaccine online only to find out that the vaccine producers censor all of the one and two star reviews. We all read the negative reviews to reassure ourselves before making a purchase. No product is perfect, but we gain more confidence in the good reviews after reading the bad reviews. But when platforms censor reviews, we assume those concerns must worry the people most knowledgeable about the product.

So much of the distrust of the vaccine can be traced directly back to the pro-vaccine . . . well, misinformation.

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