I just looked it up and anti-vax arguments predate actual vaccines - they were used for variolation which was similar:

>in a 1722 sermon entitled "The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of Inoculation", the English theologian Reverend Edmund Massey argued that diseases are sent by God to punish sin and that any attempt to prevent smallpox via inoculation is a "diabolical operation"

Vaccines date from about 1800.

I would blame the "social" media, on the old internet they had barely any visibility.

Now that we have the blame let's talk about the punishment.