The Pandemic Divide
Holiday gatherings are not supposed to be like this. But our pandemic reality is now distorted by misinformation and political division. Illustration for palabra by Rich Tenorio
In the thick of the holiday season, we reflect on how the coronavirus has affected our health and our pocketbooks - and changed our relationships in ways that may outlast the pandemic itself
Now that we’re in the thick of the holiday season, the normal stress over what to cook or what to gift this “Year Two” of the Covid-19 pandemic is compounded by a much more difficult question: What to do about unvaccinated family and friends?
Whatever our individual answers, they’re likely to lead to a deeper and more permanent question: can we go on loving or living close to those whose science denialism, conspiracy tendencies, or personal philosophy may be dangerous to themselves and others?
It seems like the coronavirus is not only possibly changing our health, our pocketbooks and jobs, but it is also deeply affecting our relationships in ways perhaps more permanent than the pandemic itself.
Fanny Grande, a Venezuelan actor and filmmaker in Los Angeles, has been going back and forth from worry to pain and anger for the past few months over this very issue. Some in her husband’s family have refused to vaccinate, and she has struggled to protect her elderly parents.
“We don’t know what we are going to do for the holidays, my mom has MS (multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease) and the doctor told us that the vaccine does not protect her,” Grande told palabra.. “I can’t expose her to unvaccinated people. We might have to do different celebrations.”
Grande says she suspects her husband’s family has stopped inviting her to events because the couple is seen as outspokenly pro-vaccine.
“It’s made me bitter.”
“I have a sister who doesn’t believe in the vaccine, is a Trump supporter, and keeps sending the wrong information to a family group chat, trying to recruit my elderly mom into not using masks or vaccinating.”
This kind of rift is happening everywhere: friendships have been broken, families are estranged, colleagues are tense, and people are constantly fighting on social media about their divergent views on vaccines and COVID-19.
“I have been called a vaccine-Nazi on a work chat,” says Beatriz Ochoa, a teacher who is facing this issue in her own family and among fellow educators.
“The person who called me has been my friend and colleague for about 15 years,” she adds. “I also have one sister who doesn’t believe in the vaccine, is a Trump supporter, and she keeps sending the wrong information to a family group chat and trying to recruit my elderly mom into not using masks or to vaccinate.”
Ochoa has also “lost” one of her best friends who refuses to get the vaccine. That person recently appeared in public events hugging people without a mask. Ochoa fumes every time she sees her now-former friend.
Earlier in the pandemic, Ochoa says, they used to do things outdoors together. But the friendship fizzled. “It’s no longer about Covid per se. it’s about the idea; it feels that we no longer have the same values. If we can’t agree on that, we can’t agree on anything else.”
There is no shortage of similar stories. Check out this recent exchange on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LauraEBelmonte/status/1455587761763733504?s=20
Why is this happening?
Why do we distrust the words of doctors and the government? Photo illustration by Lea Kos via Shutterstock
The pandemic divide is rooted in disinformation, community pressure, and science denial.
Mental health and disinformation experts have some clues about the “why” behind this phenomenon.
“In uncertain situations, or if there is fear, you look for a way to feel safe, even if in that sense of community means we dissent together,” says Melissa Shepherd-Williams, a marriage and family therapist in Encino, California. “If you dissent and I happen to weigh your opinion with mine, I have a sense of connection and it helps me get through this fear.”
Social media has an important role to play in breaking traditional lines of community and family, and creating allies with like-minded attitudes, no matter how scientifically wrong or conspiratorial the beliefs may be. These social media channels include everything from parents’ groups to religious institutions, to holistic health groups, or more abstract conspiratorial science fiction beliefs, and self-styled news leaders who are anything but.
In this confusing context, “people are struggling to communicate within their families; it is troubling,” says Dr. Gale Sinatra, a professor of education and psychology at the University of Southern California and co-author of “Science Denial, Why It Happens and What To Do About It.”
According to Sinatra, the prevalence of social media and the politicization of the pandemic has caused more people in this crisis to shift allegiance from their families to other groups.
“Instead of keeping close to family, people are shifting to closer affiliation to groups that include religious, political, anti-vax beliefs, etc.”
In other words, the pandemic is changing the way we look at people close to us.
“Traditionally, people believe similarly to their loved ones, looking out for them, etcetera. What we are seeing now is some are breaking strongly with their immediate families to identify with a politician, or group, (and) that is creating a great deal of tension,” Sinatra adds. “I have heard people concerned that a family member or friend is lost to them.”
The fact that for many months most of us spent a lot of time at home, and more and more people lived their lives online, contributed to people “getting drawn down rabbit holes.”
Some social media platforms have struggled to prevent vast amounts of misinformation and disinformation from circulating. On some platforms it is difficult to stop, such as chats on WhatsApp, Telegram, We Chat, and others with messages that go from person to person, often encrypted and in many different languages.
What to do?
Misinformation has become a wedge between friends and family during the pandemic. Illustration by Shutterstock
To deal with those we love in this situation is no easy task. “When you discover someone has a point of view so different than yours that you can’t just sit with this difference, it’s not negotiable, it may permanently break the relationship,” says Sinatra.
Others choose to not talk about it or sidestep the issue whenever possible. Anji Gaspar, a West Coast resident whose brother lives with his family in her native state of Illinois, has largely stopped talking to him after she heard he refused to vaccinate.
“He had several no-good reasons, including that the fact that I had COVID and survived early in 2020 was proof that he would survive too,” she says. She opted to avoid the subject when he and his family came to Los Angeles to visit and had to take tests before being allowed into such tourist stops as Universal Studios.
Gaspar said she couldn’t avoid the subject completely, and it was a painful conversation when he announced that he won’t allow his two small daughters to be vaccinated now that they are eligible. “My heart just burst, and he knows it.”
For many months, most of us spent a lot of time at home. More people lived their lives online. This contributed to people going down the rabbit holes
For Sinatra, the professor of psychology whose book includes a chapter on what to do about this, “the most important thing is to listen to people’s concerns and validate them and try to give them good information, or refer them to people they trust who can address their questions, like doctors.
“Some concerns are legitimate, for example, to worry about vaccine side effects or whether children can breathe well with a mask. It is valid even if it’s not scientifically correct,” says Sinatra. “I try to steer them to their doctor for information, as an example.”
No matter what we do, this will probably continue to be a difficult time for personal interactions. People are angry with each other, and the holidays are going to be a moment of potential confrontation rather than a time to rejoice and come together.
“It goes beyond unfriending someone on social media. It might be happening in real life,” adds Shepherd-Williams, the family therapist.
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Pilar Marrero is a journalist and author with extensive experience in covering social and political issues in the Latino community. As a disinformation monitor for the National Conference on Citizenship’s Algorithmic Transparency Institute, she has been tracking COVID-19 misinformation, the anti-vaccine movement, and politics. In 2012, Palgrave McMillan published Pilar’s first book, “Killing the American Dream,” which chronicles 25 years of immigration policy mishaps in the United States and their consequences for the country's economic future. It was also published in Spanish by Penguin Books. Pilar is also an Associate Editor for Ethnic Media Services in San Francisco, a Spanish-language content partnerships advisor for The Marshall Project, and a consulting producer for “187, the Rise of the Latino Vote,” a documentary by Public Media Group of Southern California which premiered in 2020.