Explaining the Current Anti-Vaccine Hysteria

In an X article titled "The Two Rituals: What Leviticus Knows About COVID, Fauci, and Measles in Lancaster County," physician Amesh Adalja considers events from the Covid pandemic to the current return of measles outbreaks to a nation that had once eliminated the disease. In doing so, he relates them to the current rise of anti-vaccine (and even anti-medicine) hysteria on the right.His ancient starting point is startlingly apropos:These are, on their face, two different problems. Leviticus 13 concerns an affliction of the body. Leviticus 16 concerns transgression against a deity. But both are impurity, both threaten the population, and both are the same leader's responsibility. What Leviticus offers is not a theory of disease but a system for handling contamination -- and that system has exactly two operations. Examine the afflicted, at length, and reach a determination about what they actually have. Or gather the pollution onto a designated carrier -- a scapegoat -- and drive it out.…