Willful ignorance is rampant. People base opinions on lock downs, the COVID Virus and vaccines based on social media posts and opinions of politicians whose motives are questionable.
No student has seen my animated COVID Dystopia film. I insist the parents view the film first and grant permission. That step has never been taken. I mentioned my COVID Dystopia film to one of my online students and she went off on a tirade about how vaccines are the cause of all symptoms associated with the virus. She was proud to be unvaccinated. I let her now that I was vaccinated and have not had a COVID infection. She vented her anger at lock downs and vaccines.
Since the parents are likely anti vaccine, I decided I could not correct my student. I realized that my job was not to educate her about the science behind vaccines and airborne transmission of the virus. My student has been infected and will likely be repeatedly infected. The first infection was chalked up as a bad cold in terms of symptoms. Each repeat infection however increases the chances of disabling Long COVID.
We went on with the lesson without another mention of the C word. For those who believe the world is flat you can not tell them it is round no matter how many scientific studies corroborate that fact. Scientific studies can be viewed as misinformation. When Russia bombed a maternity ward in Mariupol Ukraine in 2022, there were API journalists at the hospital who shot video of the carnage. Russia decided that they would combat the footage, saying it was not real, but that actors were playing the parts of the mangled bomb victims. A mother was carried out on a stretched with her belly ripped open. The open would was blurred out on national TV. Her hips were shattered and the baby was dead. The mother pleaded to be put out of her misery, she later died. The information war favors the ignorant.