Taking to Twitter, Xbox has encouraged its community of gamers to vaccinate themselves against the coronavirus in the interest of public health. Some of the replies to this thread of scientific information have called for the company to keep politics out of gaming.
The fact that Xbox has helped to dispel the conspiracy theories surrounding the pandemic and the vaccines: cool. Gamers responding to this with the claims that the platform is actually attempting to push an agenda: not cool. On August 27th, Xbox hosted a question and answer session with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the state of the spread of the virus in the United States.
It's a clever way of communicating important reports to an enormous number of people that the agency might not have been able to reach otherwise, and offers people who are interested in learning more an easy and straightforward way of getting information. After all, Xbox's Twitch channel has about 16 million followers which, if every single one of these users tuned into the stream, works out to be a little under 5% of the country's population.
And, if you managed to miss the chat with the CDC, the official Twitter account for the company rounded up the most important parts as per the most recent data from the agency. "The COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the U.S. are highly effective at preventing severe disease and death, including against the Delta variant. As it stands, unvaccinated people are most at risk to contract and spread the virus," explained the thread. Over half of the United States' population are vaccinated against the virus, however, the program is a month behind where President Joe Biden's administration would like it to be by now.
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"To dispel some common COVID-19 vaccine myths: the vaccines don't contain microchips or magnets, they don't alter your DNA, they don't give you COVID-19, and there is no evidence they have any impact on pregnancy or fertility," it continued and also added that players are able to donate their Microsoft Rewards Points to the CDC Foundation as another form of support while the pandemic is ongoing.
In spite of supplying pertinent reports and knowledge about a virus that has claimed countless lives, a proportion of gamers are annoyed that Xbox is apparently not staying in its lane. "You made my mind up so much easier now that I have confirmed to [chase] my next PS console. You are obviously out of your league. And on the wrong side of history," said one. "Please stick to gaming. Not interested in your vaccine propaganda or agenda," commented another.
Weird. Fortunately, the naysayers seem to have been shouted down by the others who have praised Xbox for stepping up and contributing to the effort to control the spread of the virus and ultimately save lives.
Featured Image Credit: Xbox, Anna Shvets via PexelsTopics: Xbox, Xbox Series X, Microsoft, No-Article-Matching
