Newcastle yoga teacher Josh Pryor believes vaccine hesitancy among the wellness community relates to "a general sense of stress about the way the world is going".
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mr Pryor said getting a vaccine to protect against COVID-19 was "fairly obviously a good thing".
"The virus is quite tenacious and it's killing a lot of people," he said.
As such, getting vaccinated "seems like your classic risk management strategy".
Mr Pryor has never had a flu vaccine or been inoculated when travelling overseas.
"I'm quite a cowboy with this sort of thing, but I am booked in for a COVID vaccine," he said.
Mr Pryor was surprised when he realised some people in the yoga community were following the QAnon conspiracy cult, which has perpetuated misinformation and lies through social media.
This trend has been dubbed "conspiritualism", a blend of conspiracy and spirituality.
Mr Pryor, head teacher of Ashtanga Yoga Newcastle, was in India last year when the pandemic hit.
He saw people in the yoga community caught in "a highly emotional state, disempowered and being fed stuff by YouTube researchers" and Facebook's algorithms.
"I saw the same people getting affected by Trumpism," he said.
"It's not helped by this trend towards creating division on social media and fostering tribalism."
He said people were getting swept into "believing misinformation due to feeling powerless".
"I feel like you've got these people who have perhaps not been paying much attention.
"A cynical way to look at it, is they were ignorant over the last 20 years and now it's right up in their face, with a needle poised to prick them in the arm. And finally they've had a bit of a think about world affairs."
The more rational course, he said, would be to "take part in politics and the evolution of culture and society in a more proactive and longer-term sense".
"Care not just about the welfare of your own body, but the welfare of the bodies of immigrants and be vocal about the welfare of our underclass, animals and natural environment."
He believed people were frustrated at the state of the world, including "corruption in the corporate-government landscape and the pitfalls of consumerism".
This included the "folly of a symptom-relief view of health, and a gradual decline in the health of the ecosystem".
But he said many of these people appeared to be transferring their frustration at the world onto COVID vaccines. These fears of COVID vaccines were somewhat connected with fears about big pharma and cynicism towards western medicine, while ignoring the risk of contracting COVID-19.
Mr Pryor, who has a computer science degree, said: "I'm a science guy, but my core is spiritual".
"You can marry the two together," he said.
But this could be done without going down the rabbit hole of misinformation.
"You want to be on the middle path. You want to acknowledge you are the scientist. That doesn't mean you get all your information off YouTube and eschew the scientific establishment, but you are still responsible. The buck stops with you.
"You have an obligation not to delegate your entire wellbeing to other people, but it's a balancing act."
Part of the problem with vaccine hesitancy was that "the political and corporate machine has so thoroughly eroded trust over many decades".
"Now, when there is something useful to say, many people do not believe it," he said.
While some wellness warriors are clinging to their anti-vaxx beliefs, scientists say the evidence shows that people should get COVID vaccines to stay well.
Staying Well
University of Newcastle Associate Professor Nathan Bartlett said people concerned about getting COVID-19 vaccines should remember that they have safety approval and have been widely used across the globe.
Dr Bartlett, a viral immunologist, said most people in Australia had received "multiple vaccines" from the first months of their life.
Immunisation rates among children in the Hunter, for example, stand at about 96 per cent. That figure is about 94 per cent across NSW.
"To single out COVID vaccines is completely ridiculous because there's no evidence for it," he said.
Hundreds of millions of people have now received COVID vaccines.
"COVID vaccine trials were running before that. So people have had vaccines in them for well over a year," he said.
Immunisation specialists at the universities of Sydney and Western Australia have stated that "serious side-effects from COVID vaccines are very, very rare".
"With what we know about previous vaccines, if side-effects are going to occur, they usually happen within a few months after getting a vaccine," they said.
IN THE NEWS
- COVID high alert for Hunter: disability workers positive as cases rise
- Maitland, Raymond Terrace supermarkets among latest exposures
- Virus fears as Sydney-based firefighters cover Hunter shifts
- Costco opening: plea for people to obey lockdown rules
- $3000 fines over Carrington group exercise
- Aaron Buman seeks Liberal seat in Newcastle council chamber
- Why Connor Watson, Josh King departures will drive Knights
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark: newcastleherald.com.au
- Download our app
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News