Demonstrators participate in a ‘Defeat the Mandates’ march in Washington, DC, on Sunday to protest against mask and Covid-19 vaccination mandates. AFP
Waving signs denouncing President Joe Biden and calling for “freedom”, several thousand people demonstrated in Washington on January 23 against what some described as the “tyranny” of Covid-19 vaccine mandates in the US.
Speaker after speaker – including notorious anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr, who compared vaccine mandates to the Holocaust – took to the microphone in front of the white marble Lincoln Memorial to decry the rules.
Like other Covid restrictions aimed at reining in a disease that has infected more than 70 million people in the US, killed more than 865,000 and brought much of daily life around the globe to a stuttering halt for two years and counting, vaccine mandates have become a deeply polarising political issue.
“Mandates and freedoms don’t mix, like oil and water,” another speaker said.
“Breathe. Inhale God, exhale fear,” exhorted yet another to applause from the crowd, made up of people of all ages, including children, and largely unmasked.
“I’m not anti-vaccine, but I’m anti this vaccine,” Michelle, a 61-year-old physical therapist from Virginia who declined to give her last name, said.
She said the messenger RNA serums developed by companies such as Pfizer and Moderna in record time were “too experimental” and “rushed”.
The mRNA vaccines, given to millions of people around the world in the past year, have been proven safe and effective, as well as being hailed as potential gamechangers in modern medicine.
Michelle, who paused in the interview to sing the national anthem with other demonstrators, said she has a religious exemption from taking the vaccine – but that to continue coming to work in Washington she has to get tested every week.
To her regret, her son, who initially had also resisted taking the vaccine, has now relented.
“He went and got it without me knowing – so much peer pressure,” she said.
Another demonstrator, Therese is adamantly opposed to vaccines – all vaccines.
She explained that she came by bus from Michigan, in the north of the country, to protest.
“Mandates are not appropriate . . . vaccines aren’t working, we’ve been lied to about the vaccines,” said the 61-year-old, who worked in a school cafeteria before her retirement and also refused to give her last name.
“And we should not be masking our children,” she added.
“I talked to a couple of psychologists who say our children are suffering and they’re depressed . . . It’s terrible. We need our freedom back.”
Further up the steps, the speakers – including some people in white coats, presented as doctors from Texas – continue to come and go. “We are Americans and that’s what we do, we fight tyranny!” claims another.
