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Sarah Ostrowski was convinced to finally get vaccinated after reading numerous stories on Reddit’s r/HermanCainAward of unvaccinated people dying from Covid-19.
Courtesy of Sarah Ostrowski

For most of the pandemic, Sarah Ostrowski went to her full-time gas station job in Indiana, accepting the risk of being unvaccinated. Many times a day she interacted with customers and even cleaned up the public bathroom with no protection beyond her mask.

Ostrowski doesn’t believe Covid-19 is a hoax. She takes it seriously. But she had reasons for not getting the shot.

She was concerned about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine causing blood clots, as had been reported in a few recipients. She was hesitant about the mRNA technology used to develop the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. She also worried about potential side effects forcing her to take time off work.

And then there were her parents, who were constantly spouting anti-vaccine rhetoric, warning her that she would die if she got the shot.

“You care about what your parents think of you and whether or not they think that you’re making a good decision or the right decision,” Ostrowski said. “It’s almost like a groupthink kind of thing. Even though you know the answer is wrong you’re still going to say it just to fit in or conform.”

That all changed last month. Ostrowski, who regularly scrolls through her feed on social media site Reddit, stumbled upon the forum r/HermanCainAward. It’s a grim section of the app dedicated to showing visitors the real-life consequences of being unvaccinated and catching the coronavirus.

Reddit users upload screenshots multiple times a day of people who previously posted anti-vaccine comments and content on Facebook only to end up getting sick with Covid-19 before dying. The name of the subreddit refers to former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who died from Covid-19 in July 2020, after refusing to wear a mask and attending a Donald Trump re-election campaign event.

“Nominees have made public declaration of their anti-mask, anti-vax, or Covid-hoax views, followed by admission to hospital for Covid,” the page description reads. “The Award is granted upon the nominee’s release from their Earthly shackles.”

Since the subreddit’s creation in September 2020, it’s expanded to more than 375,000 members, with the top posts garnering thousands of user interactions. The forum has been the 10th fastest-growing subreddit over the past 30 days, according to FrontPageMetrics.com, which tracks Reddit usage.

An entry this week included a screenshot of an Aug. 12 post from a man who put a meme out to his followers: “I heard the government is putting chips inside of people. I hope I get Doritos.”

A friend of the man later wrote on his feed that he was asking for prayers because the man and his wife had both been hospitalized with Covid-19. The wife had to have an emergency C-section to deliver their baby over 10 weeks early.

A following post came from the man’s wife: “The world lost an amazing daddy, husband, brother, son, and friend today. My heart is in a million pieces.”

‘I was done playing’

Ostrowki said she’d eventually seen enough. On Sept. 12, she got her first shot. 

“If dad thinks I’m an idiot because I fell for the government and I’m a sheep, so be it,” Ostrowski said. “I clean a public restroom for Christ’s sake. I deal with some really gross stuff. So no, I was done playing.”

During the pandemic, social media sites turned into a haven for misinformation and conspiracy theories, whether related to masks, the vaccines or advice from public health experts. Facebook, in particular, has struggled to weed out false content, with users sharing misinformation even in the comments section of posts from authoritative sources, according to internal company documents reviewed last month by the Wall Street Journal.

With multiple vaccines having been available for months for anyone 12 or older, vaccine resistance has become the central challenge to ending Covid-19. President Joe Biden said as recently as last month, “This is a continuing pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Only 57% of the country has been vaccinated, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 22% of Americans self-identify as anti-vaxxers, according to an academic study published in May. Experts, including White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, have said the U.S. will need as much as 90% of the population to get vaccinated in order to reach herd immunity.

US President Joe Biden speaks to reporters on the South Lawn upon return to the White House in Washington, DC on October 5, 2021.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Since hitting the U.S. in March 2020, over 722,000 American have died from Covid-19. Ostrowski said the harrowing stories of death among the unvaccinated have had a major impact on her.

“It really hits home when you literally see yourself in these people,” she said. 

Reddit still has plenty of anti-vaccine content across its site, which reaches over 50 million daily active users. As it gears up to go public, Reddit recently took steps to remove several subreddits that were being used to share misinformation. But numerous subreddits are still surfacing such content with names like r/Conservative, r/Ivermectin and r/FauciForPrison.

A Reddit spokesperson said the company has policies in place to remove inaccurate posts on Covid-19 vaccines.  

“Our Content Policy prohibits many kinds of harmful content, including health-related disinformation and other forms of manipulated content,” the Reddit spokesperson said in a statement. “We have experienced teams dedicated to detecting and actioning content that violates our policies. As a result of these teams’ efforts, we remove 99% of violating content before a user sees it.”

Family dynamics

Chana Joly visits r/HermanCainAward with regularity. She said she does it for her dad.

Despite losing her brother to Covid-19 in January, Joly’s dad has refused to get vaccinated. She said he’s been radicalized in the past few years by misinformation and anti-vaccine conspiracies.

“I think it’s especially sad with my dad because he is an educated person,” Joly said. “He’s not unintelligent. He just believes people he shouldn’t.”

Joly scrolls through the Reddit forum to gather stories that she can send her dad. When he gets defensive and disputes the posts she shares, she tells him to prove her wrong.

“You find me these stories on social media,” Joly said, describing what she tells her dad. “These people dying in their own words from the vaccine. Find me these stories and you show me as many of those as I’m showing you of these. Or even a tenth of them.”

Reddit user Chana Joly visit r/HermanCainAward to gather stories of real anti-vaxx people who die from Covid-19 that she can send to her dad, who has yet to get vaccinated.
Courtesy of Chana Joly

Reddit user Rockets9495 of Houston is a medical doctor who works in an emergency room. He uses r/HermanCainAward for anecdotes that he can share with nurses, technicians and patients who may be on the fence.

He agreed to speak with CNBC but didn’t want to disclose his name publicly to maintain his privacy. He showed CNBC his hospital badge.

“Misinformation is so goddamn dangerous, especially after this last president,” the doctor said. “This is not a game. This is not a joke. You don’t live in a Tom Clancy novel. This is real.”

He said that scientific evidence hasn’t been effective for him in trying to convince people about the safety of the vaccines.

“But this seemingly weaker evidence — word of mouth, anecdotal ‘All these people are dying’ — seems to hit people way harder,” the doctor said.  

A different kind of award

The subreddit also includes some stories with happy endings. Those posts get labeled IPAs, or Immunized to Prevent Awards, and are given to users who show pictures of their vaccine immunization cards on the channel as proof that they got their shots.

A Reddit user with the handle lovelylady227 achieved the label.

“This subreddit was what fully convinced me, after waffling back and forth,” she wrote on Sept. 22, adding that she’s “officially out of the running” for the award that gave the channel its name.

Her post got tagged with the IPA label and received more than 7,000 upvotes and 380 comments. She posted her immunization card on Reddit after getting her second dose.

Lovelylady227 is a woman named Hannah. She asked to have only her first name published because she hasn’t told her anti-vaccine family members about her decision.

Hannah received her first dose of Moderna’s vaccine in August, but became fearful of getting the second shot after hearing her parents and her sister, who works in health care, discuss their concerns about the vaccines. Her family members would show anti-vaccine content on their phones to one another, and they believe that people who are vaccinated are shedding the virus.

Hannah went to Reddit in search of information. She started at r/CovidVaccine. There she found numerous posts from people complaining about the side effects they’d experienced after getting their second shots. Some described trembling, and others said they’d suffered heart attacks. 

“It just really freaked me out,” she said.

Hannah’s continued browsing on Reddit eventually brought her to r/HermanCainAward. What she found struck a nerve.

She read stories that start with people mocking the vaccine and end with their spouse asking friends to contribute to a GoFundMe page because of the hospital bills or the funeral expenses.

“You don’t really realize how bad it is to be in the hospital with Covid until you see these people who are somehow giving you a play-by-play,” Hannah said. “When you get those first-hand experiences from a Facebook profile, and you see the people experiencing regret, it’s just like, ‘Oh man, I really need to take this seriously. I can’t put it off anymore.'”

Hannah said she’s hoping to wait until three months after her vaccine before casually bringing it up with her family. At that point, she can show them that no harm has been done.

“The fact that they won’t have noticed anything different is one of my main hopes,” she said.

In the meantime, she’s grateful for the positive reaction she received on Reddit after posting her vaccination card. 

“I know you don’t need other people to tell you you did the right thing, but it sure helps when there’s a bunch of people saying, ‘Hey, good job,'” she said. “Because it’s not coming from my family, that’s for sure.”

Ostrowski, the gas station manager, also received an Immunized to Prevent Award for posting her vaccine card. 

“Late to the party but finally fully vaxxed,” she wrote on Oct. 4. The post received more than 2,000 upvotes and more than 100 comments. 

She said she’s hoping to encourage more people to acknowledge they were wrong and that they can still change directions.

“I finally came around and made the right decision,” she said.

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Google reverses policy telling workers not to discuss DOJ antitrust case

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Google reverses policy telling workers not to discuss DOJ antitrust case

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai meets with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Warsaw, Poland, on February 13, 2025.

Klaudia Radecka | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Google has reversed a policy forbidding employees from discussing its antitrust woes following a settlement with workers. 

The company sent a notice to U.S. employees last week saying it rescinded “the rule requesting that workers refrain from commenting internally or externally about the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice,” according to correspondence viewed by CNBC.

Google settled with the Alphabet Workers Union, which represents company employees and contractors, according to the U.S. National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB. The settlement and policy reversal mark a major victory for Google staffers, who have seen increased censorship on subjects such as politics, litigation and defense contracts by the search giant since 2019. 

The U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020, alleging that the company has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance.

Google said it “will not announce or maintain overbroad rules or policies that restrict your right to comment, internally or externally, about whether and/or how the on-going antitrust lawsuit filed against Google by the U.S. Department of Justice may impact your terms and conditions of employment,” according to last week’s notice. 

The policy change was first reported by The New York Times

The reversal comes as Google and the DOJ prepare to return to the courtroom for their scheduled remedies trial on April 21. The DOJ has said it is considering structural remedies, including breaking up Google’s Chrome web browser, which it argues gives Google an unfair advantage in the search market.

A U.S. District Court judge ruled in August that Google illegally held a monopoly in the search market. Google said it would appeal the decision. The DOJ doubled down on its calls for a breakup in a March filing.

Following the August ruling, Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, sent a companywide email directing employees to “refrain from commenting on this case, both internally and externally.”

Shortly after, the Alphabet Workers Union filed an unfair labor practice charge against Google with the NLRB. The union alleged that Walker’s message was an “overly broad directive” and said that a breakup could impact workers’ roles. The NLRB in March ruled that Google must allow workers to speak on such topics.

Google’s settlement states that the National Labor Relations Act gives employees the right to form, join or assist a union. It notes that Google is not rescinding its prior clarification that states employees may not speak on behalf of Google on this matter without approval from the company. The settlement also adds that Google will not interfere with, restrain or coerce workers in the exercise of their rights.

Despite the settlement, spokesperson Courtenay Mencini said Google did not agree with the NLRB’s ruling. 

“To avoid lengthy litigation, we agreed to remind employees that they have the right to talk about their employment, as they’ve always been free to and regularly do,” Mencini said in a statement to CNBC.

The settlement by Google comes at a “crucial moment” ahead of the remedies trial, the Alphabet Worker’s Union said Monday. 

“We think the potential remedies from this trial could have impact on our wages, working conditions and terms of employment,” said Stephen McMurtry, communications chair of the Alphabet Workers Union-CWA, told CNBC.

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Apple has best day since 1998 on Trump’s 90-day tariff pause

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Apple has best day since 1998 on Trump's 90-day tariff pause

Apple CEO Tim Cook inspects the new iPhone 16 during an Apple special event at Apple headquarters on September 09, 2024 in Cupertino, California. 

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Apple shares skyrocketed 15% on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on his administration’s “reciprocal tariffs,” which would have affected the company’s production locations in Vietnam, India, and Thailand.

The rally added over $400 billion to Apple’s market cap, which now stands just under $3 trillion. It was Apple’s best day since January 1998, when late founder Steve Jobs was the interim CEO and three years before the company unveiled the first iPod. At the time, Apple’s market cap was close to $3 billion.

Apple has been the most prominent name to get whacked by Trump’s tariffs. Before Wednesday, it was on its worst four-day trading stretch since 2000. Investors worried about Apple’s outlook because the company still makes the majority of its revenue from selling physical devices, which need to be imported into the U.S.

Most of Apple’s iPhones and other hardware products are still made in China, which was not exempted from tariffs on Wednesday. In fact, Trump increased tariffs on China to 125% on Wednesday, up from 54%.

China issued an 84% tariff on U.S. goods this week, raising the possibility that Apple could get caught up in a trade war and lose ground in China, its third-largest market by sales.

Apple has worked to diversify its supply chain to lessen reliance on China in recent years.

On Wednesday, tariffs on Vietnam were reduced from 46% to 10%, and tariffs on India were cut 26% to 10%, which raises the possibility that Apple will be able to serve a large percentage of its U.S. customers from factories outside of China with lower tariffs.

Stocks skyrocketed across the board on Wednesday after Trump announced the tariff pause. The Nasdaq Composite climbed over 12%, its second-best day ever.

Apple hasn’t commented publicly on Trump’s tariffs, but CEO Tim Cook will likely address the topic on an earnings call on May 1.

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Dot-com bust, 1987 crash had massive relief rallies similar to Wednesday’s pop

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Dot-com bust, 1987 crash had massive relief rallies similar to Wednesday's pop

The Nasdaq Marketsite is seen during morning trading on April 7, 2025 in New York City. 

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images

Every bear market has days like this.

The Nasdaq soared 12% on Wednesday, the second-best day on record for the tech-heavy index and its sharpest rally since January 2001, which was the middle of the dot-com crash.

During the financial crisis in October 2008, the Nasdaq enjoyed two of its best five days ever. The other two came as the tech bubble was bursting. The index’s sixth-best day since its beginning in 1971 came on March 13, 2020, as the Covid pandemic was hitting the U.S.

Of the 25 best days for the Nasdaq, including Wednesday, 22 took place during the dot-com collapse, the 2008-09 financial crisis or the early days of Covid. One occurred on Oct. 21, 1987, two days after Black Monday. The other was in November 2022.

Call it a dead-cat bounce, a relief rally or short covering. It’s a familiar reaction during the worst of times for Wall Street.

Be prepared for plenty more volatility.

The worst month on record for the Nasdaq was October 1987, when the index plunged 27%. Second to that was a 23% drop in November 2000. In March 2020, the Nasdaq sank 10%. It’s still down 1% this month just after closing out its worst quarter since 2022.

President Donald Trump sparked the Wednesday bounce when he dropped new tariff rates on imports from most U.S. trade partners to 10% for 90 days to allow trade negotiations with those countries. The president’s social media post lifted optimism that levies would be less severe than expected and immediately boosted a market that’s been hammered since Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff plan last week.

Wealthy Trump donors and business leaders, including hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone and billionaire investor Leon Cooperman have weighed in with hefty criticism of Trump’s tariffs. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier on Wednesday that the tariffs will likely lead to a recession, after BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said Monday at an event in New York that, “Most CEOs I talk to would say we are probably in a recession right now.”

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends a cabinet meeting held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on March 24, 2025.

Win McNamee | Getty Images

Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s closest confidantes in the White House, spent the early part of this week slamming Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor, calling him a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Musk’s electric vehicle company has gotten pummeled of late, tumbling 22% in the four prior trading sessions after suffering its worst quarter since 2022. The stock soared 23% on Wednesday, its second-best day on record.

The big difference between the current market tumult and the downturns in 1987, 2000-2001, 2008 and 2020 is that many investors say this one was easily avoidable and, potentially, can be reversed based on what the president decides to do.

“What Trump unveiled Wednesday is stupid, wrong, arrogantly extreme, ignorant trade-wise and addressing a non-problem with misguided tools,” investor Ken Fisher wrote in a post on X on Monday, referring to last week’s announcement. “Yet, as near as I can tell it will fade and fail and the fear is bigger than the problem, which from here is bullish.”

Trying to predict Trump’s next move is a fool’s errand.

On Sunday evening the president told reporters that he’s not trying to push the market down, “but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.” He stressed the importance of fixing the country’s trade deficit with China, and said “unless we solve that problem, I’m not going to make a deal.”

The president is keeping his hard line on China, at least for now. He said on Wednesday that he was raising the tariff on China higher, to 125%. All other countries would go back to the 10% baseline tariff rate as negotiations take place.

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Prior to his latest pronouncement, economic fears had spilled into the bond market, raising concerns that higher interest rates would create further problems for consumers at the worst possible time. The 10-year Treasury note yield, which helps decide rates on mortgages, credit card debt and auto loans, spiked overnight to 4.51% after hitting 3.9% last week. It’s currently at 4.38%.

As the tech industry’s megacap companies, which make up an outsized portion of the Nasdaq and the S&P 500, prepare to report quarterly results starting late this month, management teams will be looking for some visibility that can guide forecasts for the rest of the year and into 2026.

In the absence of more clarity, many of their plans will likely be on hold as they figure out how much existing and expected tariffs will raise costs and hurt revenue, and what they need to do to shore up supply chains.

Wednesday provided some relief. Investors like Ackman are celebrating.

“This was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump,” Ackman wrote on X. “Textbook, Art of the Deal.”

In a note, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives called it “the news we and everyone on the Street was waiting for” after the president’s “self-inflicted Armageddon.”

But for companies that are in the crosshairs of Trump’s wavering policy decisions, all the uncertainty remains.

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Trump: The 90-day pause is on countries that didn't retaliate; China wants to make a deal

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