Matthew Perry
Since 54 year-old actor Matthew Perry died in his hot tub last Saturday, the medical examiner in charge has not yet released a specific cause of death. As usual, however, that has not stopped online commenters from coming up with their own theories, some of them qualifying as conspiracies. The most boneheaded such theory thus far, which can be seen on various social media platforms, is that Perry died because he previously received the COVID vaccination. One such example found on Reddit (which appears to have been reposted from Twitter/X), was phrased like this:
I wanna ignore it but I can’t, Matthew Perry was vaccinated. Is it a coincidence?
Note that the theory was posed in the form of “I’m just asking the question.” Jon Stewart once made fun of the frequent use of this technique by Neil Cavuto and others at Fox “News.” Such a qualifier lets folks raise any crazy, groundless theory they want, e.g., “Was Matthew Perry abducted by space aliens, then returned to his hot tub to die?”
The twist here, however, is that commenters who replied to this online theory about Matthew Perry and the COVID vaccination almost uniformly slammed the people who put it forth. Here are just some of those reply comments:
–“Yes because drowning to death is totally because of being vaccinated…”
–“This just in; those idiots didn’t know people actually died of various causes before ‘the jab’.”
–“What exactly is their expectation? That vaccinated people never die?”
–“He also ate breakfast that day. OMG, breakfast causes death!” [Disclosure: this one came from right here at Messaging Matters]
–“He also breathed air, ate food, and slept. Coincidence? I think NOT!”
–“No, no, he used a different shampoo that morning. Had to be the shampoo. Someone should investigate!”
–“Sadly I would love to comment but I’ve been dead 4 times from the vaccine and twice from wearing a mask.”
–“To quote Ron White: ‘You can’t fix stupid'”
They’re antivaxxers so it makes sense that they don’t know the difference between causation and correlation tbh
Moreover, there continues to be a political element to COVID vaccination, with NBC News finding two months ago that Democrats take the vaccination in far higher numbers than Republicans (88 percent to 55 percent). The number was even lower (46 percent) for Republicans who support Donald Trump more than their party. And studies also show Republicans have a higher death rate from COVID than do Democrats. Therefore, the statistics demonstrate that, quite the opposite of the conspiracy theory raised here regarding Matthew Perry, those who do not get the COVID vaccination are more likely to die prematurely — from COVID itself.
However, based on the way these conspiracy theorists were swiftly and effectively put in their place in this instance, we are left with actual hope that a large number of Americans still have that crucial characteristic of common sense.
Photo by Policy Exchange, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/BrimtA
