Indeed, but I think that happened more because anti-vaxxers inserted themselves into the political sphere more than they had previously. They needed and found a malleable audience, I'll say that much.
What is particularly interesting to me is that the anti-vax community pre COVID appeared to be of the opposite political bent to the larger anti-vax community post COVID. Maybe it was just my incorrect subjective impression, but pre-COVID, it seemed that most anti-vax people were more you hippie holistic medicine types. Although, I guess there has always been a small group of "mark of the beast" anti-vaxxers.