Corinna Kopf has defended her vaccine 'anxiety' and denied being an 'anti-vaxxer' following criticism

• Influencer Corinna Kopf was criticized after tweeting that she felt "anxious" about vaccinations.
• Revealing that she had faced death threats, the Vlog Squad member denied she was "anti-vax."
• Anthony Fauci recently suggested that vaccine hesitancy could lead to Delta variant spikes.

YouTuber, streamer, and Instagram influencer Corinna Kopf recently faced backlash online after she suggested on Twitter that she was experiencing "anxiety" around getting vaccinations and wrote that she has never had her flu shot.

The 25-year-old, who is part of YouTuber David Dobrik's Vlog Squad, said on Twitter that she was called a "p----," "coward," and had received death threats following a series of tweets she made about vaccine hesitancy on July 5. In her tweets, Kopf appeared to call out followers for not "respecting" people who are nervous about having vaccinations.

"No one talks about the anxiety some people face when asked to take a vaccine," she wrote. "We are consistently asked to respect people's feelings and personal choices, but all that is thrown out the window when someone's nervousness is taken as selfishness."

Shortly after posting this tweet, Kopf received a huge amount of backlash from users calling her "stupid" and self-centered. The influencer, who also has an account on OnlyFans, addressed the backlash she received in a follow-up tweet, writing, "The internet really is a weird place… I open up about how I currently feel and instantly I'm labeled an anti vaxxer?"

Kopf said that she had all her other vaccinations apart from the COVID-19 vaccine and wasn't against vaccinating her children.

She later revealed on Twitter that she didn't have her flu vaccination either because it wasn't mandatory. "I didn't get it growing up and I don't get it now," she wrote. "Not getting the flu shot doesn't make you anti vaxx. The f--"

As the backlash to her tweets continued, Kopf added: "Any other tweet suggestions? trying to be the most hated on here."

In her final tweet addressing the situation, Kopf wrote, "might just get my covid vaccine tomorrow, being called a p----, a coward and being told to die a few times really convinced me and eased my nerves :)"

A Gallup poll conducted in May 2021 found that that 76% of US adults are either vaccinated against Covid or plan to be. While research by the Delphi group suggests that vaccine hesitancy is falling among US adults, more than one in five remain reluctant to get the vaccine.

Vaccine hesitancy is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the "delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability of vaccine services." According to the WHO, the key to beating the pandemic is through "herd immunity" - which can only happen if 70-90% of the population is vaccinated.

The anti-vaccination movement is prominent in the US, with chief medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci recently suggesting that vaccine hesitancy could lead to a spike in cases of the Delta variant of Covid. Experts have also warned that vaccine hesitancy could lead to the pandemic being prolonged because it gives more time for the virus to spread and mutate, as reported by Healthline in April. Meanwhile, research suggests that social media influencers can have an impact on vaccine uptake.

Corinna Kopf did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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