Corona deniers: On the way to a parallel society

Job exchanges, business directories, dating portals: there are more and more offers on the internet for those who oppose vaccinations. Experts warn in an interview with Report Mainz before parallel societies and radicalization.

The Christmas spirit doesn’t want to arise here today: It’s cold, it’s raining, the mulled wine comes out of the thermos. A small group of Corona skeptics stands together in a square in Michelstadt in the Odenwald. “0-G Christmas market”, that’s what they call it here, so no pandemic rules. Quite different than right next door, only a few meters away, at the municipal Christmas market.

Corona skeptics organize Christmas market

The group made an appointment over the Internet. Only six came today. A week before that, they say, there were more than 50. And actually they would like to be a lot more, “like a hundred,” says one of the men.

The raging pandemic, increasing numbers of infections, full intensive care units – they simply do not take all of this seriously here at the “0-G Christmas market”, although the incidence in the Odenwald district is over 530 on that day. “That’s all arguable,” says the young man. “It is not my impression, if I lead my life normally here, that there is now a need here.” He feels excluded by the pandemic rules. Now you just organize yourself.

Wide range for those who oppose vaccination

And so they are not the only ones: They have long been online, the large community for corona skeptics and vaccination opponents, almost like a parallel society. With portals for vaccine-free travel, for example, or job boards. Here employers can search specifically for unvaccinated employees. Quite a few advertisements can be found there, from all kinds of industries, even from the medical sector.

“Parallel structures” is what the social psychologist Ulrich Wagner calls them – structures that deliberately set themselves apart from the majority of society. “I would even speak of walls,” says the professor, because one can communicate through trenches – not through walls.

“No sex with the vaccinated”

How pronounced the demarcation of the vaccine opponents is now is particularly evident on one of the portals: a dating platform on which unvaccinated people can find love. The provider advertises on the net with provocative slogans: “Your booster? My kisses”, “Tired of dating externally controlled zombies”, “No sex with the vaccinated”, it says, for example. According to the portal, more than 4000 people have already registered.

The creators of the page share at the request of Report Mainz with, do not ask anyone to stay away from vaccinated people. Social psychologist Wagner sees it differently: “This is an extreme form of demarcation”. Because it is no longer just about the demarcation in relation to the willingness to be vaccinated. The statement is: “I don’t want to have anything to do with them at all, including in the intimate area.”

Montgomery: “Society is divided”

The chairman of the World Medical Association, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, warns that opponents of vaccinations are increasingly delimiting themselves: “These bubbles, in which the opponents of vaccinations move, have long since led to a division in society.”

Montgomery fears that those who oppose the vaccine will radicalize further. Both the state and the citizens would have to oppose this. “As the majority of the population, we have to deal with it consistently and we mustn’t just let these people get away with it.”