As to point (1) that isn't the part I identified as manipulative.

And Covid isn't an existential threat. It's terrible, mind you, but killing 2% of the population is only enough to cause widespread misery, not to wipe out the human race. Inasmuch as people compare it to the flu, that's because the flu is badly underestimated and has killed a large number of people. The 1918 pandemic, for example, killed several of my own family.

For (2) I didn't say it was wrong or immoral, I said it was terrible specifically because it causes mistrust. Someone who does not like you cannot be expected to make good decisions on your behalf.

And what people saw was others prioritizing their own safety and not caring about anyone else. E.G. with the early mask advice the doctors appeared to be prioritizing themselves. There are actually good and rational reasons why doctors should be protected first in such a case, but the notion that they'll stab you in the back does not engender trust.

For (3), I've not argued otherwise, I'm simply pointing out more effective means of it based on actually talking to a lot of people who are skeptical of the medical advice being given and successfully convincing some to get vaccinated.

It's true that I've seen instances of abject quackery, but part of the problem is that they get their veneer of false credibility via comparison to the more visible failures.

> It's not like we're telling people giant wartime lies to keep them onside.

It's mostly the fear that's played up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp3gy_CLXho

But I get it, it's hard to motivate people towards moderation and so much easier to push people towards one extreme or another.

Like, this isn't some existential risk, this is something that's going to make a lot of people miserable when a lot of grandparents die and the hospitals get flooded. This is from people not having any intuitive understanding of exponential equations (or S-curves) and not realizing how quickly this stuff explodes in a population. This is people being selfish and going around sick or not taking precautions because they don't understand asymptomatic spread or how just spreading the virus that's probably (but not necessarily) harmless to them is likely to kill a lot of people.

Sure, the science is open, but the people need someone they can actually trust who cares about them to translate it for them. That too many would trust random quacks talking about how iron ions or some BS are responsible for Covid and the vaccine allegedly makes you magnetic or something (seriously, I don't even understand this nonsense, that's just what they said), as I saw recently, just makes me sad that it's hard to bridge the trust gap here.

I mean, sure, I can point out that no, my arm is not magnetic now. And yes, just for the hell of it, I really did check despite this being an incredibly stupid theory. But that only does so much.

I don't think we're at half the population who are going to avoid vaccines, maybe more like 10%, though they're noisier than average, so it's hard to get a read on it. From other data, hopefully things work out at around 80% vaccinated, so we may be okay as long as we work on bridging the gap in trust by doing our best to get informed consent by talking through people's fears.

I fear this requires more of a one-on-one approach with family/friends/acquaintances discussing this on a personal level rather than mass communication, though, and I'm well aware of how badly that scales.