Thousands of people have marched this morning in Washington, with temperatures around zero degrees and mostly without a mask, to the monument to Abraham Lincoln, pTo protest the mandatory vaccination against the coronavirus in the United States, despite the fact that all the scientific evidence advises to be immunized and despite the fact that the casualty report due to covid-19 already amounts to 860,000 deaths here.
They came from all over the country to a city where 93% of the population has received at least one dose (and around 70% have the complete regimen). Washington also recently adopted an immunization mandate and has imposed proof of vaccination to enter bars and restaurants (leading many to stay in hotels in neighboring Northern Virginia, which has no such restrictions). ). In the United States as a whole, it is estimated that one in five adults is not vaccinated.
The organizers, who called the protest on Facebook and other social networks and raised $200,000 for its celebration, had calculated that some 20,000 people would attend, and although that calculation has been optimistic, it is possible to interpret the call for this Sunday, on which the Police have not offered attendance figures, as a demonstration of the growing influence of the anti-vaccine movement in the United States, stronger than ever in the two years since the start of the pandemic, in part, due to the latest judicial decisions. The Supreme Court struck down at the beginning of the year the obligation to be vaccinated imposed by the Joe Biden Administration for large companies, while a Texas federal judge on Friday blocked the planned obligation for Administration workers in that Southern State.
The attendees were arriving throughout the weekend to a demonstration called under the slogan Defeat the Mandates (Let’s defeat the mandates) for which the police presence was reinforced around the White House and the Capitol. Some volunteers explained to those who arrived at the point from which the march started, at the foot of the famous obelisk to Washington, that it was not an anti-vaccine protest but against the obligation to inoculate them, and that it was also apolitical. In practice, the predominantly white crowd carried signs with anti-vaccine messages. The speakers, a true who’s who of the movement, charged against their effectiveness and almost all the protesters consulted by this newspaper were proud of not having put them on.
Messages like these could be read on the banners: “My body, my choice”, “Advocate social distance with those who force you to get vaccinated”, “Let’s stop the holocaust of vaccines”, “Give me freedom or give me omicron”, “ Coercion is not consent” or “My children are not guinea pigs”. Meanwhile, the vendors were making a box with flags that said Let’s Go Brandon (Let’s go Brandon), a code message that has made a fortune to wish Joe Biden that he literally fucks. And a handful of attendees sported badges from the Proud Boys group, organization involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack.
Rap antivacunas
The organization had prepared a real show, with anti-vaccine rap music included, presented by the comedian JP Sears, who, with his characteristic red hair, has taken the microphone to ask a fervent audience: “What kind of story do you want to tell to your grandchildren: that you were one of those who fought for their freedom or those who bowed their heads before the mandates? Sears, in a reference to the national anthem, which was played during the event, added: “America is the land of the free because it is the home of the brave, and not because its citizens abide by rules that are not fair.”
Sears was giving way to a all-stars from the anti-vaccine movement, including Robert Malone, a scientist who has gained international notoriety for spreading falsehoods about coronavirus treatments; Richard Urso, a Texas doctor who said he spoke for 17,000 of his fellow professionals who have been “fired, censored or deleted from Wikipedia” for opposing “the pharmaceutical industry, the media, health authorities and [Anthony] Fauci [cara visible de la gestión gubernamental de la pandemia]”; or Robert F. Kennedy, son of Bobby Kennedy and prominent anti-vaccine.
Also taking the stand were a dozen doctors in white coats who defended concepts such as “autonomy in medical decision-making”, “natural immunity” and “early treatment”, and said that it was “time to recover the country”. One of them, Mary Talley Bowden, whose hospital has suspended her for spreading hoaxes, defended the use of invermectin, a drug for horses strongly discouraged by health authorities, to cure the virus. The floor was also given to people who claim to have suffered side effects from vaccines. They wore the name of the medicine (Pfizer, Moderna, Janssen…) that was administered to them on their chests.
Among the audience, Miriam Anderson, who arrived from King George (Virginia), told EL PAÍS that she was one of those people. She was a believer in vaccines until she had “a terrible adverse reaction with the first shot” and in the hospital where she was treated, a nurse told her that “it was much more common than people thought.” Some, like Tony and Maria, had come as far as Portland (“a five-hour plane ride is nothing when our freedom is at stake”). Jeff Silverman had walked from New York to raise funds, while John Foster, from Black Island, an island off Rhode Island, explained, wearing an American flag scarf, that his aversion to vaccines is not limited to that of the covid: “They are all dangerous, they put them into circulation without really knowing the side effects.” A little further on, a man approached another to ask why he was wearing a mask. “Harvard sounds familiar to you?”, he has released. “It’s, you know, a major university. Well, there they say that it is not possible to get infected abroad. Does he think he’s smarter than those people?