Anti-vax thinking was around pre-pandemic. An article from 2018:
* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6122668/
and 2015:
* https://www.bbc.com/news/health-33774181
2020+ was mostly about anti-vax 'contrarian' thinking merging with anti(-Democrat)-government thinking.
Before vaccines were created, Democrat and GOD death rates from COVID were about the same, but after they became available GOP rates became higher:
* https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37486680/
* https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/study-finds-large-gap-in-...