People in Amish country prepare a horse team to work on a farm in Pulaski, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 2021. The vaccination drive is lagging far behind in many Amish communities across the U.S. after a wave of virus outbreaks that swept through their churches and homes during the past year.
Photo credit: AP Photo/Keith Srakocic
Religion news service is reporting that Amish communities across America are eschewing the anti-Covid vaccines and relying instead on prayer and 'herd immunity' to protect them. The notion that magic spells cast towards an imaginary mind-reading sky man who can suspend the laws of nature at will can protect them against a potentially deadly virus, would be laughable if the consequences of this childish notion weren't potentially tragic, and not just for the Amish themselves but for anyone else with whom they might chance to come into contact. In fact, for anyone infected by coming into contact with an infected Amish, the consequences could be the same as if one of these peace-loving, non-violent people had taken a gun and shot them.
As for 'herd immunity', this in substantial part, depends not just on the members of their community having immunity (by surviving an infection) but also on a large proportion of thos with whom they might come into contact also having immunity so they are not shedding virus particles even when asymptomatic. This largely depends on other people having the vaccines. So, whatever their reason for declining the vaccines, they appear to think that doesn't or shouldn't apply to others. Any risks involved (and what risks have been identified are very rare) are okay for others, but not for them.
As long as the Amish communities remain unvaccinated, they pose a threat to the rest of America and to the world as they can act as breeding grounds for potentially even more deadly variants than those currently circulating.
This is a remarkably selfish strategy, and one which knowingly puts other people at risk - possibly not what Jesus had in mind when he llegedly urged people to love one another and do unto others what they would want done unto themselves.
When health care authorities in Pennsylvania tried to advertise the benefits of vaccines in three Amish-read newspapers, two refused to carry the adverts. When they opened vaccination centres in fire stations and community centres in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in six weeks only 12 of the 400 people who showed up were Amish.
During the past year, there have been several waves of Covid-19 cases centred on Amish churches. Despite this, in Holmes County, Ohio - home to the nation’s largest concentration of Amish - just 14% of the county’s overall population is fully vaccinated. Despite nearly 180 million Americans having had the vaccines, this is only about 54% of the population - far below what experts estimate is required for effective 'herd immunity' (somewhere around the 80%+ level). The dependence of the Amish on herd immunity is as irrational as their dependence on magic spells and incantations to the same omniscient god that, being fundamentalists, many of them will regard as the creator of this virus, who has a perfect plan for every one of us.
Just another example of the harm that religions can do, but perhaps Darwin would appreciate the effect this selective removal of the fundamentally religious from the human gene pool will be having on the human species' fitness to survive in an environment where viruses like SARS-C0V-2 can evolve in one species, be transferred to another, then continue to evolve new variant, with devastating consequences.
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