Even without the Covid-19 pandemic, which now seems to be slowly receding, apps, websites or social media groups continue to tap into the antivax vein. The latter serve as intermediaries for these single people according to whom the vaccine remains dangerous for their DNA or even their fertility.
A trend that shows how opposition to vaccination has become a defining part of the identity of some. Many are joining these private groups of “unvaccinated singles”, which have multiplied on Facebook. Many Internet users indicate that they do not want to meet “piqués”, that is to say people who have received vaccine injections, while others qualify opponents of vaccination against Covid-19 as fighters of the pure-blooded freedom”.
“It shows how much of a thick-walled bubble they are,” said Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of Alberta, Canada. “Being anti-vaccine has become an ideological marker, a way of showing one’s side,” the specialist told AFP.
About half of American dating app users think it’s important to be able to see vaccination status on profiles, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center study. vaccination is now described as “crippling” on some profiles.
Some netizens on the same forum describe vaccinated single people as carriers of “biological weapons”, in an apparent reference to the debunked theory that vaccinated people help spread viral “superstrains”. And all this vaccine misinformation overlaps with others, like the conspiracy theories of the QAnon nebula, believing in the existence of a global sex trafficking ring organized by an elite of Satanist pedophiles.
“Studies have shown time and time again that if a person is anti-vaccine – or unvaccinated – then one can safely infer that person’s views in many other areas,” says Timothy Caulfield. Some see in this movement a lucrative vein.
The Florida-based Wellness Company sells a dietary supplement that says it fights the negative effects of Covid-19 vaccines in order to get “that pre-Covid feeling back”. But experts and health authorities told AFP that they have no evidence that would prove the effectiveness of this product, sold for nearly 80 dollars.
This same company supports a dating site for the unvaccinated called Unjected. Its members must have their negative vaccination status “certified” by “a medical professional”. Apple’s AppStore banned the app in 2021, according to US media. But similar apps, like Unjabbed, are still available on the Google Play Android phone app store.
At the height of the pandemic in 2021, the most well-known dating apps in the United States – Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid – had installed the possibility of adding a badge to one’s profile indicating that they were vaccinated, at the initiative of the House- White. Vaccinated and soon-to-be-vaccinated users then found more success on OkCupid, according to the company, which added, “Vaccines really help people find love. »
A vaccination accelerator which could in the future be limited by the antivax movement, which is very solid despite the ebb of the pandemic. The urge to find an unvaccinated partner could further be reinforced by claims circulating on social media that vaccines are transmitted through sex and threaten fertility.
In fact, says Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, “the only real use of such platforms is to find a partner who agrees with your views on ‘medical freedom’.” “There is no clinical reason to do so,” she concludes.
