Anti-Vaxxer and Anti-Masker Now Targeting Children and Vaccination Centers / LGBTQ Nation
Anti-vaccine and anti-mask activists have started targeting school children and vaccination centers. Their efforts represent an escalation of right-wing attempts to stop the so-called “medical tyranny” of COVID-19 prevention efforts.
Last Thursday, anti-mask protesters ensured that three schools in Vancouver, Washington – Skyview High School, Alki Middle School and Chinook Elementary School – were locked after trying to get onto the Skyview campus.
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About 15 protesters came to Skyview after a parent was upset about a student’s refusal to wear a mask as requested by the Vancouver School District. The protest group included members of anti-LGBTQ groups, white supremacists The Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer, according to The Columbian.
School security and administrators kept the protesters out of the building, but the schools remained closed and denied visitors access, but otherwise continued with classes. The school has since said they are working with parents to come up with a solution.
“Regardless of their attitudes towards masking requirements, I believe that most parents in our community agree that protests on our school premises and disruption of the school day are not in the best interests of students,” said Kyle Sproul, president of the Vancouver School Committee. of publication.
In a similar incident, around 7:30 a.m. last Friday morning, about 30 anti-mask protesters came to the grounds of the Bennie L. Cole Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas. The protesters demonstrated against the Northside Independent School District’s mask requirement for students.
On the school grounds, protesters yelled at a student and told him to take off his mask. The young student later spoke to counselors because he was upset, Barry Perez, NISD’s executive director of communications, told the San Antonio news website MySA.com.
The protesters also confronted the school principal. Although the protesters left at the police request, the school has asked the police to provide extra security for the coming week in case the protesters return.
Meanwhile, antivaxxers in Warsaw, Poland and France have started to destroy vaccination sites. On August 1, someone set fire to a vaccination center in Warsaw. The Polish Minister of Health Adam Niedzielski called it “an act of terrorism”. Niedzielski noted that anti-Vaxxers also harassed vaccination workers and stormed another center elsewhere in the country.
In Urrugne, France, anti-Vaxxers set fire to a vaccination site in mid-June. At another location in Grenoble, France, a vandal flooded a vaccination center with fire hoses.
On the last weekend in August, anti-vaccination protesters closed a mobile vaccination clinic in Georgia after protesters threatened health workers and those willing to vaccinate.
While anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers used to demonstrate at school board meetings and public health authorities, these new developments suggest they are changing their tactics. However, the optics could ultimately work against their goals.