Vaccination Games

Here’s a really interesting story of how the U.S. desire to get even with the Chinese led to an antivax psyop campaign in the Philippines that, of course, undermined trust in vaccines in general, not just in SE Asia, but worldwide. 

Chaos is not the same as freedom, and people get hurt:

The U.S. military’s anti-vax effort began in the spring of 2020 and expanded beyond Southeast Asia before it was terminated in mid-2021, Reuters determined. Tailoring the propaganda campaign to local audiences across Central Asia and the Middle East, the Pentagon used a combination of fake social media accounts on multiple platforms to spread fear of China’s vaccines among Muslims at a time when the virus was killing tens of thousands of people each day. A key part of the strategy: amplify the disputed contention that, because vaccines sometimes contain pork gelatin, China’s shots could be considered forbidden under Islamic law.