Mikel_Jollett/Twitter
February 1, 2021, 6:37 am
It isn’t difficult to see why the United States is still trapped more deeply in the pandemic than many other countries. In addition to the Trump administration’s shoddy leadership throughout 2020, every state has struggled with mask mandates and closure rules, while also combatting anti-maskers not only refusing to mask up themselves but trying to get everyone else to stop as well.
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And now that the vaccine is here, we have a new problem: anti-vaxxers.
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They descended upon a mass vaccination site in Los Angeles over the weekend to protest, blocking the entrance, actively preventing people from getting the coveted vaccine, and actually forcing the site to shut down briefly due to their antics.
Dodger Stadium is a drive-through COVID-19 vaccination site that used to be a drive-through COVID-19 testing site. Cars lined up as people in the top age group waited to get their vaccinations over the weekend. But around 30-40 protestors, reportedly carrying signs that varied from declaring COVID a hoax to protesting the lockdowns to promoting QAnon conspiracy theories blocked the entrance, forcing police to come and clear them away enough so that cars could get through.
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Warnings of the upcoming protest circulated on social media in the days before it took place, preemptively angering residents who see the vaccine as their only shot at getting back to normal, seeing as how anti-maskers have made life difficult for everyone the past year.
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“This is a sharing information protest and march against everything COVID, Vaccine, PCR Tests, Lockdowns, Masks, Fauci, Gates, Newsom, China, digital tracking, etc,” one such post read. It also encouraged attendees not to wear “Trump/MAGA attire” in an attempt for their “statement to resonate with the sheeple.”
While California once appeared to be keeping COVID-19 infections relatively under control, new cases surged across the state in November, and haven’t gotten back down to previous levels yet. Over three million of the 26 million cases of COVID in the U.S. have been confirmed in California, with LA County making up over one million of those.
Just last month, anti-maskers stormed a grocery store and mall in Los Angeles in a coordinated “protest” that quickly devolved into pure chaos as they picked fights with masked customers, harassed employees, and caused other disruptions.
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Prior to that, LA was subjected to “caroling protests” led by actor-turned-evangelical Kirk Cameron, who decided getting a bunch of people together to sing in protest of mask mandates was a smart move in the middle of a pandemic spread through respiratory droplets.
It’s no wonder this pandemic has no end in sight.
*First Published: February 1, 2021, 6:37 am
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