Vaccine Mandates and Protests Spread Around the Globe

From Italy to France, Australia, back in the United States and around the globe, more and more governments and institutions are ramping up requirements regarding the Covid 19 pandemic. It began with mask mandates and business shutdowns last year, but as we continue to experience the second year of trials and tribulations from the worldwide event many areas are forcing populations to take the experimental vaccine while implementing health passports for travel and commerce as a way to further implement and impose decisions made by governments and businesses over the people of Earth. 

In Italy, new mandate rules were revealed last week stating that all people over the age of 12 are required to show a health pass to access public activities and services in the country. The health pass will be issued to all who have received a vaccine, those who are certified to have recovered from the virus, or those who have tested negative within the previous 48 hours. While the new mandate covers all citizens of Italy, it will also require all visitors to the country to abide by the new requirements. Without the health passport, entry will be denied to everything from movie theaters, historical landmarks, exhibitions, museums, sporting events, festivals, parties, trade fairs, gyms, swimming pools, restaurants and most other public events. For the moment, travel by bus, planes and trains do not require a health passport, but talks are currently being made to include travel in the decision and are set to be decided by September before the fall and moving into the winter months ahead. 

Many strongly disagree with the new mandates being imposed over the people of Italy. An Italian parliamentary session was recently interrupted by protests of lawmakers who held up signs reading “No Green Pass” as they walked through the grounds of the assembly. One politician who opposed the gesture even ran up and ripped a sign from the hands of a protesting politician, then scrambled his way through the crowd and out the door.  

In other countries, mass protests have broken out by the people against the vaccine mandates. Throughout France, an estimated 200,000 people gathered to protest the health passports in their country. In Paris, protests resulted in a clash with Police where tear gas was fired into the crowd. 

A protester at one of the events in France told Euronews that, “Personally, I am not vaccinated, and I won’t be. It doesn’t matter what we are forbidden from doing, going to stores, swimming pools, cinemas, it doesn’t matter… life is priceless. Freedom, that’s precisely it, freedom to not be vaccinated, and not to give in to the government’s blackmail.”

In a horrible omen of what a potential future could look like, Australia has taken drastic measures to increase the appearance of security across the nation. In one of the world’s most strict lockdowns, Australian politicians have released helicopters and military personnel to force people to stay inside of their homes. 

After a mass protest of tens of thousands of people without masks, Australia is implementing a ‘Zero Covid’ strategy. In Sydney, 1,300 Police have been unleashed on the public, setting up roadblocks, enforcing fines, arresting violations for those who step outside, and patrolling streets to stop any future protests that arise. Around 300 military officers have been sent out to go door to door to ensure that people who have tested positive for the virus are staying inside of their homes. 

In a report from the US Sun, video was revealed showing a helicopter flying over shouting stay at home orders over a loudspeaker. One citizen, who was walking through a public park and caught the action on video, was targeted by the helicopter and shouted at to return to his home or they would locate him and issue him a fine. 

More than half the population of Australia is currently under stay at home orders.

Here in the United States, Covid 19 health passports are not required so far, but many businesses are requiring employees to become vaccinated to continue working for the company. The Department of Veterans Affairs just recently became the first government agency to require mandatory vaccination, and talks of further mandates for Federal workers and military personnel are happening now. 

With all of this, can we expect protests to happen in the United States if vaccine mandates continue to spread faster than the virus itself? So far, 29% of Republicans in the United States say they will not take a vaccine, compared to only 4% of Democrats. As of now, the youngest people authorized to get a vaccine are of the age of 12, but parents are hesitant to force vaccination upon their own children as well. A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 25% of parents would absolutely not vaccinate their children, 18% said they would wait and see how things went, and another 10% said that they would vaccinate their children if forced to do so. 

This is more and more so becoming an issue of individual liberty and the freedom of personal choice for people in America. NFL player Cole Beasley recently shared a tweet with a commonly shared opinion that, “The more that the government flexes its political muscles to urge or enforce vaccine compliance, the greater incentive there is for populist politicians to push back, reinforcing the idea that the fight over vaccines is a fight about individual liberty.”

Earlier this month, after Biden talked about potentially having door to door vaccination outreach efforts, a Republican of Colorado Lauren Boebert protested speaking to a supporting crowd that “Don’t come knocking on my door with your ‘Fauci ouchie’. You leave us the hell alone.”

Media outlets around the nation have increased hateful and demonizing rhetoric towards those who do not wish to be vaccinated. USA Today writer Tom Nichols referred to anyone who has vaccine hesitancy as “cynical and obstinate children” who should be shunned from the public until they “grow up”. A Washington Post headline recently read, “Stop Pleading with Anti-vaxxers and Start Mandating Vaccinations”.

It doesn’t take much thought or foresight to see where all of this is headed, even here in the United States, but around the world as well. The summer is not even over, and as we continue on forward into the coming fall and winter, everyone knows that this entire situation is nowhere close to being resolved. For themselves, their families and their children, the people of the world should be able to keep their freedom of choice when it comes to healthcare. The question now is how far world governments and businesses are willing to go to impose the illusion of safety with their decisions over the people of Earth.