Don’t demonise those who refuse the Covid vaccine | Letters

One reader's experience of the effects on family members of the conspiracy theories surrounding vaccinations

I read David Green's letter on anti-vaxxers (12 January) and empathised with the letter written in response (13 January). The week before Christmas my dad died of Covid. The intensive care consultant couldn't have been clearer that, in her opinion, if he had been vaccinated he would not have developed Covid pneumonia to the severity that he did.

He died very frightened and asking his family to come and be with him, and we couldn't. The experience traumatised my sister so badly that she was hospitalised with psychosis three days after his passing. The reason he wasn't vaccinated is because his mind was poisoned with conspiracy theories and misinformation exacerbated by two years of lockdown and reduced social contact. While I am angry that he would not get vaccinated, I don't think any good would ever come from criminalising his choice.