David Penberthy: The weirdness of anti-vax sentiment was laid bare in a bizarre cartoon this week

Anti-vaxxers have a sneering disdain for people who want life back to normal, as a bizarre cartoon this week helped reveal, writes David Penberthy.

The story of science versus the supernatural can best be told through the tale of the man from Sydney who travelled to Byron Bay and is now accused of starting a Covid cluster.

This fellow believes the coronavirus does not exist. The coronavirus begs to differ. Here I am mate, it said to him, living happily inside your body.

Not only is the man Covid positive, he has also given it to his wife and their two children, and there are now fears it has spread into the Byron community.

It takes a heady mix of self-interest and stupidity to jump in your car and drive 758km north along the Pacific Highway, stopping in God knows how many towns along the way, at the height of what is meant to be (yeah, right) a hard lockdown in NSW.

You would suppose though that if you’re a full-blown Covid denier, as this man is, such trifles are the last thing from your mind.

Anti-vaccine protesters in Adelaide last month. Picture: Keryn Stevens

If we look further afield to the United Kingdom, there is a genuinely sad case where a chap has paid the ultimate price for his scepticism towards what he regards – or to be morbidly precise, regarded – as the “so-called” pandemic.

This from Britain’s Evening Standard last Monday: “An anti-vaxxer nightclub manager has died of Covid-19 after mocking people for getting the “experimental” vaccine.

“David Parker, 56, passed away at Darlington Memorial Hospital in County Durham on Monday after contracting the virus.

“He had no underlying health conditions.

“Mr Parker tested positive for Covid-19 just weeks after denouncing the vaccine and warning of a “big pharma” conspiracy in a number of Facebook posts.

“In one post on Facebook, Mr Parker, who spent a decade working as the manager of Club Louis in North Yorkshire, shared an image of an anti-lockdown protest in London, writing “brilliant” with a clapping hands emoji.

“Other posts included a meme mocking people who post pictures of their vaccine card and an image of a man wearing a tinfoil hat with text written across it reading: “When you realise your tin foil hat has less aluminium than a vaccine”.

“According to the Daily Mail, Mr Parker once wrote: ‘I feel the need to post information on here for people that aren’t receiving another side to the story due to media not being impartial’.”

Well, forgive my partiality. Regrettably for Mr Parker, he would seem to be a very real and very dead example of why we need to call out all this nonsense. It is endangering people’s lives and imperilling our long-term freedom.

To the credit of his shattered family, they are now using his case to campaign for others to stand up to the misinformation and conspiracy theories that proliferate online surrounding Covid and vaccines.

Police respond to snap anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne last week.

There has been a fair bit of talk, some of it unpleasant, about the role of non-English speaking communities in Australia spreading the coronavirus through mass gatherings at religious events or through their conviction that family get-togethers take precedence over social distancing rules.

It is undeniably true that this has been a factor. There is clear evidence that some Middle Eastern communities, African communities and also groups from the subcontinent have been at the centre of outbreaks.

But it should also be said forcefully that no race or religion has a monopoly on any of this conduct.

Have a look at those anti-Covid rallies around Australia and you’ll find more than a few placards with quotes from the rattier backwaters of The Holy Bible, principally the Book of Revelation, pointing to vast global conspiracies.

Equally, check out the mad Americans at anti-Covid rallies claiming they’re protected by the blood of Jesus.

While we are talking about flawed belief systems, the middle-class cult of Wellness and all the mumbo-jumbo it entails deserves a massive spray.

After all, it was the High Priest of Clean Living, Pete Evans, who landed himself in strife for selling Covid-curing lavas lamps, if indeed Covid is actually a thing in Pete’s mind.

The weirdness of anti-vax sentiment was laid bare in a truly bizarre cartoon this week in The Melbourne Age, by Michael Leunig who has thrown in his lot with the forces against science.

The cartoon featured a mocked-up vaccine passport bearing the Australian coat of arms.

Among other things it said it entitled the bearer to “join the tourist hordes swarming the cities of Europe where the citizens will hate them for destroying local culture” and “go to football stadiums and watch young athletes inflicting concussion injuries on each other”.

It concluded that the passport entitled people to “look down upon the unvaccinated and call them idiots, morons and nut-jobs”.

The sad thing about this Leunig cartoon is that he has spoken previously about what he calls the “belligerence” of what he regards as the pro-vaccination camp (by which he means almost everybody, presumably).

Yet in that cartoon this week, he showed not so much belligerence but sneering disdain towards people who simply yearn for a day when normal life resumes and they can do fun things together like travel and watch sport.

To end on a positive note. For the first time this week, there was quantifiable proof showing that overwhelmingly Australia is a nation that not only gets science but wants to get through this dark period thanks to the power of vaccines.

Newspoll found that just 11 per cent of Australians say they will never get a vaccine against Covid.

There was a higher number of vaccine hesitant people with concerns about Astra-Zeneca, but the flat-out anti-vaxxer number was 11 per cent.

Which leaves the other 89 per cent of us to get the show back on the road. It is heartening. Keep rolling your sleeves up, Australia.