The partisan divide over the country's pandemic response has reinvigorated the anti-vaccine movement nationwide, with mostly Republican lawmakers in nearly 40 states backing bills to restrict Covid-19 vaccine mandates or vaccine passports.
Anti-vaccine fervor that was previously concentrated in specific communities — like Orthodox Jews in New Jersey and New York, and Somali immigrants in Minnesota — spread more widely during the pandemic as the U.S. government urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.
At least six states — Arkansas, Florida, Montana, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah — have enacted legislation to limit Covid shot mandates, giving vaccine opponents some of their most prominent victories in recent memory. At least 11 states have banned the use of vaccine passports, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, and another 31 states at minimum are considering similar legislation.
The wave of opposition to Covid-19 shots, and efforts to curb public-health authorities more generally, have alarmed health experts. They say the new legislation will make it harder to quell the pandemic and prevent future outbreaks of Covid-19 and other illnesses. Many families now emerging from isolation have delayed routine immunizations during the pandemic, and two dozen states have dispensed Covid-19 shots to fewer than 50 percent of eligible residents.
“We're very concerned about that because it really undermines everything we do," said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. "And things I think the public take for granted for safety" — such as health departments' ability to react quickly to outbreaks of food- and waterborne-illnesses — "are not going to be so safe anymore.”
The anti-vaccine movement saw an opportunity at the pandemic’s onset to bring more people into the fold by shifting its message from the shots themselves to governments’ often-unpopular promotion of masks and social distancing, said Erica DeWald, director of strategic communications and partnerships at Vaccinate Your Family, a vaccine education group co-founded by former first lady Rosalynn Carter.
“This is the first time that they’ve been able to attach themselves to an issue that has successfully passed,” she said.
The efforts have taken hold in states like Texas and Oklahoma, where anti-vaccine political action committees have grown in power and influence in recent years. The Republican governors of Arkansas and Montana already have signed into law measures ensuring Covid-19 vaccination status can’t be made a condition of employment in certain settings. Other governors and legislatures have banned the use of “vaccine passports” for travel or other services, despite the Biden administration’s vow not to pursue a national document.