I was right to worry about my anti-vax nephew, during the time of Covid-19
Sometimes I wish I could turn off the worry switch, in my brain.
Yesterday he informed me that pretty much everyone in the country has already been infected and gotten over it. Umm, well, NO! And, since they don't know how long of an immunity one might possibly have, after symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, our guard can not be let down. I reminded him about his uncle's experience with Covid. He can attest that it's not worth the risk to think you can't or won't get it. He found need to end the conversation, shortly afterwards.
Then his wife shared a video showing an 'undercover nurse' claiming she has proof that Covid-19 is a criminal hoax. I disputed this notion. She told me to watch the video and then we can talk. I told her I listen to actual scientists and medical specialists like Dr. Fauci so I'm not wasting my time on such nonsense. She said, well, let's talk after you watch the video. 
I worry about them, but I worry more about their partially vaccinated 4 year old daughter. She went through the first round of vaccinations before they 'read something on the internet' and decided that going any further would permanently damage her. So now she goes to some sort of chiropractor. Don't ask......
His sister is now trying to start a family. I have no worries about her.
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He was a little 'conspiracy theory' minded, already, but he really spiraled when his mother's cancer flared up, again. He started researching all kinds of alternate treatments and sending them to her, but she did what her physician's recommended. The truth of the matter is, either way of dealing with it would have ended up with her death because the cancer came back fast, and spread like a wild fire. He has convinced himself that had she listened to him, she'd still be alive today. After she died, he got 100 times worse and now he's carrying on this belief with his daughter.
He might love us, but there's not a lot of respect. He and his wife are, well, radical vegans who don't hold back on shaming the rest of the family for not following their example. They wouldn't even trust me to babysit their child, when they came for a visit, despite me taking care of him when he was a baby, without doing any damage. Their daughter has never spent any time away from her parents (including sleeping in the same bed for the first 3 1/2 years of her life) which I think is very, very damaging. They seem to think their lifestyle will protect them from every illness. When his wife had appendicitis, she was SHOCKED because their diet should be preventing ALL physical maladies. And I've had to bail them out of financial problems more often than I should have done, because of their 'pristine eating' lifestyle. They pay more for one pepper than I do for a whole bag of potatoes.
His sister has vowed to never go and visit them, again, unless she has someone with her because he criticized and shamed just about every thing she does. At one time I had thought about moving down to be closer to them, especially after their daughter was born. After spending a few long weekends with them, I realized that would be the biggest mistake of my life, and I'm made some whoppers.
It's really very heartbreaking. And, sorry I got carried away. Sometimes I just need to VENT. 
They seem to be obsessed with "Evidence" (the "undercover nurse"
, but any evidence will do.
And they doesn't get the disconnect between their two beliefs:
"It's a criminal hoax" and "Everyone's got it."
The question is always, "Why?" Why would someone devise this hoax? Why would every hospital and doctor and nurse choose to be in on it? Was that their experience with their own doctors, that they willingly participated in hoaxes?
And if alternately-- and it is ALTERNATELY... both beliefs can't be true-- everyone in the country has already had it, then it's NOT a hoax, is it? So who are these people-- the real criminals-- who are making videos pretending to be nurses and claiming it's a hoax? Why would they do that? And if everyone has already been exposed and gotten it, why do so many new people get sick every day? Why do a thousand people die each day of it, if it's no big deal? That's more people than die of car accidents every day, more people than die of cancer or opioid overdose every day. Do they think that these people aren't actually dying, or do they think it's not a big deal if a thousand people die every day?
These antivaxxers (and now pandemic deniers) are such a weird mix of a craving for certainty and a hatred of actual experts. They keep pivoting between the two poles (need for certainty and hatred of knowledge). I don't mean to be insulting, but they're like bullheaded stupidity trying to appear smart with their charts and Youtube videos. Their arguments always miss a lot of the planks of logic and rational inquiry, but most of all, they can never answer "why" with any connection to good common sense.
They miss the idea that real intelligence includes skepticism and curiosity, which they sort of have, but also methodology and systems, and constant experimentation and considering the counter arguments, and requires the willingness to make mistakes and acknowledge that they are mistakes and learn from them. And common sense is a big part of it, training yourself to consider what's WRONG with your argument, not just what's right, and also what else could explain this phenomenon (that everyone who "supposedly" died of Covid ate eggs within two weeks of the death doesn't mean eggs kill).
"Critical thinking" ought to be a course that gets started in grade school, about the time they start teaching keyboarding skills, and repeated every year with a different age-appropriate focus (like "media literacy" and "legal reasoning" and "image analysis" and "scientific method" and other aspects of critical thinking) all the way through graduate school.
