September 2, 2021, 12:38 pm*
The best tool in the fight against COVID is the vaccine—so go get vaccinated! Protect your community and yourself. However, people are still hesitant for a number of reasons. Luckily, lots of folks are changing their minds and joining in the effort to protect others from getting sick or dying.
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On Reddit, these ex-anti-vaxxers are sharing what changed their minds and inspired them to get their COVID vaccine. Some stories are simple, others are heartbreaking, and some are humorous. But whatever reason they made the decision to vaccinate, awesome and thank you.
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1. Their Spouse
“My wife yelled at me.” — geturlifetogether
2. Family History
“Honestly when I was about 25 years(10+ years ago), I was on the fence about vaccines, in general. One of my old relatives (she was over 90) passed away and I was going through her things. One was a series of postcards, she wrote to her uncle as a girl. She kept trying to get her uncle to come visit her baby brother. She was sooo excited to have a little brother as she only had sisters. Then in next few postcards the baby is sick, then he is really sick. Baby brother has whooping cough, he dies. Seeing the grief and sadness play through a series of postcards damn near a 100 years ago, from a child’s perspective, impacted me in a way I could have never predicted.” — polksallitkat
3. Leaving The Mommy Forum Echo Chamber
“Getting out of the mommy forum echo chamber. When I was a new mom, I found myself being very lonely, home all day with this tiny human and no one else to talk to, and was quickly being disabused of the idea that I knew how raising a child works – relatively normal new mom stuff. So I did what I normally do when I don’t feel I know what I’m doing – I turned to the internet and started reading articles and joining forums for moms to get ideas, tips and pointers from more experienced moms. I learned a lot from them, and am grateful for it. Being low income I learned all about modern cloth diapers and started doing that for my daughter, started using cloth pads for myself. They taught me things about circumcision that I’d never heard before, not that it was ever relevant, I have 2 girls, but it was still eye opening. Learned about several different techniques on how and when to introduce solids into baby’s diet, learned so much more about car seat safety than the one prenatal class I got before baby was born, even learned some household budgeting tricks that helped us out. But there was an undercurrent in this very natural ‘crunchy’ mom group of delayed vaxxing and anti-vax. There was a couple of moms who claimed their children were harmed by vaccines, and had a lot of links to show how vaccine injuries are under reported etc. By that point my first child had most of her vaccines with no reaction but a mild fever with one of them, so I only pushed off her varicella vaccine until she was older. But I then delayed most of the vaccines for my youngest, with the idea that if I waited to get them and spaced them out more, she’d be older and more able to tell me if something was wrong. Because if these ladies could be so right about so many other things, how could they be so wrong about vaccines?As my youngest got older that group more or less imploded due to in fighting between different factions, and while some did reform elsewhere, it was mostly for moms of babies and toddlers and my kids were too old, so I drifted away from them. And started seeing all of the anti-vax hate. It took me a while to even entertain looking into the arguments – no one enjoys finding out they’re wrong. But I finally did look and yeah, I was wrong. Fortunately nothing bad came of it, but still. I fell victim to group think, and it could have ended badly.” — LadyMageCOH
4. Legitimate Research
“When I would see reports of the vaccine doing damage I decided to do my own research. Kept seeing headlines of the vaccine giving you blood clots and realized it has a 0.0006% chance of doing that. I began to get skeptical of all these headlines I was seeing and realized the numbers were extremely low. Out of 6 million people, one person would get a bad side affect and it would be all over news along with millions of people reposting it. Called up my friend who goes to medical school and she explained to me how the vaccine was created quickly, the benefits of it, etc., etc. I cringe at the fact that I was anti vaccine and I’m able to see through a lot of misinformation without even trying. Realized it’s so easy to manipulate people and TikTok promotes so much misinformation for Covid it’s crazy, you can report it all you want the moderators are extremely anti-vax and they have the most conspiracy theories on masks and Covid on that damm app.” — Reckox1
5. Death In the Family
“My whole family, including my parents, are anti-vaxxers so I got out of having to get shots like the other kids at school. My parent told me that the shots were bad and dangerous, and as a kid who hated getting shots, how could that not be true? Pain = bad. Anyways, the internet calling anti-vaxxers crazy made me start to really question the reasoning as I got older, but I was still scared of vaccines because I didn’t understand how they worked. After high school I decided that I would rebel and get vaccinated, the only problem was, I had no idea where to get vaccinated or how. I went to the on-site medical center on my school’s campus but I got embarrassed and left. Then, COVID hit, and I had the decision shoved in my face and there was no more running from these choices. My cousin stole some COVID vaccination cards so I had the option to use a falsified document in place of getting vaccinated, I declined the offer. About a week later, I go to CVS to face my biggest fear and get my very first vaccine ever. In a horrible twist of fate, that very same day, my cousin who stole the cards died suddenly of COVID-19. That was a slap in the face like I have never felt in my life. He left behind a pregnant widow (found out she was pregnant after his passing) and an infant son. His death changed no one in my family’s tune. This weekend I’m going to the funeral to pay my respects. I will have to bite my tongue when my whole family barks about all their conspiracy theories about how he ‘actually’ died. Needless to say, I’m convinced more than ever, if you haven’t yet been vaccinated, please do so.” — meatgrandma
6. School
“Grew up in an antivax household. Got a bachelor’s in biochem and was about two years into my PhD in physiology when I finally got vaxxed. Took a lot of years of learning science and developing critical thinking skills. Thankfully both of my siblings got vaxxed as adults too (they were smart and figured it out younger than me!) Unfortunately my mom is still antivax and won’t get the covid vaccine. I’m immunocompromised and it’s hard not to feel like she doesn’t care about me when she refuses to get vaxxed (or wear a mask in public). No, I haven’t seen her much in the last 1.5 years.” — freshspring_325
7. The “Organic Everything Rabbit Hole”
“This is embarrassing but…in 2016 I fell into the homeopathic/vegan/organic everything rabbit hole, was pregnant with my first. Was terrified the shots may hurt him. Then I watched a PBS documentary on vaccines and changed my mind. I look back horrified for even considering not vaccinating him.” — Cyn138
8. Science
“I didn’t want the covid vaccine cause like everyone else I said ‘it’s too soon to develop a vaccine.’ I realized that over the last 25 years we’ve had medical advancements so large that this is just one more thing to add to the books.” — jjqueens
9. Terrible Parents’ Group Experience
“I wouldn’t say I was anti-vax, but like many others I wanted to take a ‘wait and see’ attitude after development was rushed through. Literally my ‘come to Jesus’ moment was when a couple in our parents group (we just all get together once a month at a park or indoor play place) EMPHATICALLY stated they would ‘have to be strapped down and forced’ to get the shot. This is a couple that have made a never-ending series of poor decisions in their lives regarding jobs, their kids, evictions, etc and they are NEVER open to input. After hearing about their rationale regarding the vaccine, I gripped my husband’s arm and he whispered to me, ‘I get it, we’re going to get the vaccine tomorrow.’” — janet_colgate
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10. Chicken Pox Mistake
“I am an enthusiastic supporter of covid vaccines based on my prior mistakes in vaccinating my kids. The Chicken Pox vaccine came out when my kids were little. At my son’s wellness visit (he was about 7yo) the doc offered it to me, but it was brand new, and I wanted to wait until it was more proven in the real world. When my daughter’s next wellness visit came around, there were no negatives that I could find in the press, so I got her immunized and intended to get it for my son at his next visit. Well you guessed it, he caught it first, and suffered. More than a week of suffering. He missed a school field trip and a scouts visit to meet a professional baseball team. My daughter was mildly ill for a day. Keep that in mind that if you don’t get vaccinated, you are choosing to become very ill with lifelong symptoms, or dead, vs. negligible symptoms.” — lotus_eater123
11. Delta
“I wouldn’t say I was a full on anti-Vaxxer but I was pretty arrogant about feeling the vaccine was unnecessary for me. Since the delta variant I decided to go get the shot because although I’m relatively young (33) I still am technically obese (5’9” 225 thick athletic build) and stay pretty active. I’m a black man who also has chemically corrected high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. I’d be an absolute fool to not do anything to prevent a serious COVID infection.” — freqLFO
12. Talking To Medical Professionals
“Talking to nurses and doctors I’m friends with, they’re obviously more educated than the media.” — Euphoric_Two_1281
13. Grandma’s Death
“I didn’t want the covid vaccine, didn’t care what anyone else did, I just wasn’t gonna get it. Even after doing research and reviewing both sides, I still didn’t like it. I have all my other vaccines, but something about the covid one bothered me. Then I saw covid destroy my grandmother’s life. She got covid, went into a coma for 2 months, and came out on her own so we thought we were in the clear. Then in the span of 4 months, she declined so badly they recommended home hospice, only because they wanted her to be where she was comfy and cared for, and save us money at the same time, because the last thing anyone needs is high bills on top of tragedy. When she finally passed, I couldn’t even process it. But a week and a half ago my sister tested positive for covid in the same house, and it all came flooding back. I hid in my room, cried, and booked an appointment to get the first dose. I refuse to be the reason that happens to someone else. Get the covid vaccine. Please.” — TiredTeen2020
14. “Daddy, I Don’t Want You To Die”
“My 14 y/o son saying ‘Daddy, I don’t want you to die, please get the vaccine.’ And if that wasn’t enough what really put the cherry on the cake was that I work for government and watching all my colleagues take the vaccine I realised well if they take the vaccine it can’t be bad/conspiracy. Common sense took over and my big ego took a mighty hit. Then when I took it I felt I was part of the big community and it felt wonderful. My son is happy and I get to keep my job. No brainer.” — MediumSpeedFan
15. Nothing Really Happened
“Was vaccine hesitant when the pfizer/moderna vaccines first came out. Then millions of people took them and nothing particularly unexpected happened for months, so now I’m convinced.” — SYLOH
16. Rejecting Parents’ Fear Mongering
“I am not really antivaxx by any means, but I was eventually very hesitant about getting the COVID vaccine as I am young and healthy, my country has relatively few cases and I was honestly nervous about the vaccine being so new, not knowing the long term side effects. Also my parents have become hardcore antivaxx since COVID broke out – my mother told me not to get tested as they would plant microchips in my nose/brain and that if I got the vaccine I would die within 3 years from mad cows disease. Also she claims to get violently ill if she is near vaccinated people. So I felt like I had to make a choice between my family and the vaccine. She has just gotten very ill with delta like symptoms and still refuses to get tested or isolate. I decided to say f*ck these selfish, overly privileged Facebook warriors that are my parents, creating fear in others and maybe even causing others to become sick or even die. If getting vaccinated means not having them in my life then so be it. Decided to start education to become a health worker and I got the vaccine first chance I got. No regrets. I refuse to be to cause of other peoples’ suffering or possible death.” — unsubscribedlife
17. Reflection
“For me it was seeing some of the conspiracy theories and the other crazy beliefs of some anti-vaxxers. I started wondering if I was really gullible. It made me question all the ‘facts’ that were presented about the dangers of vaccines. Thankfully I came around before my first child was born.” — YouBeIllin13
Featured Image: Unsplash
*First Published: September 6, 2021, 12:00 pm
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