Jab protesters: ‘It should be our right to choose’
CAMPAIGNERS GATHER AGAINST MANDATORY VACCINATIONS
MORE than 100 maskless campaigners gathering in a bid to protest against mandatory Covid vaccinations crowded onto Huddersfield’s Greenhead park yesterday, with one man comparing it to a woman’s right to consent to sex.
The crowds turned out to hear protester and lawyer Anna de Buisseret address them, in which she accused the government of running a “reign of terror” in the way they had handled Covid.
The protesters have ramped up their efforts to stop Covid vaccinations becoming mandatory despite case numbers climbing globally in recent days following the emergence of the Omicron variant.
The emergence of the variant has led to masks being reintroduced in shops and on public transport, while overseas, Austria and The Netherlands have gone as far as reintroducing some lockdown restrictions.
Protesters say they fear more countries could follow suit and bring in further restrictions.
As of Saturday, 117,369,986 Covid-19 vaccine doses were administered in the UK.
By contrast, since the vaccine programme rollout began, only 13 deaths have been directly linked to the Covid 19 vaccine in England according to the latest data from the Office of National Statistics, which would equal 0.000011077% of doses leading to a death.
One protester said: “It’s like a woman’s right to choose.
“You should have a say in what happens to your body. Yes or no. Those are the two absolutes, but it’s our choice to make.”
In fact, the majority of people The Examiner spoke to said they were not anti-vaccine at all, they just wanted to exercise the right to choose what happens to their own body.
“We’re not anti-vaccine,” said one demonstrator.
“Some of the people here today have even had the vaccinations, but that was because they chose to do so.”
The right to choose has also been supported by Dr Chris Whitty, who back in September advocated for children to be able to make their own decisions regarding vaccination ahead of the 12-15 jab rollout.
By presenting people with all the facts, in a form that they could understand, it was hoped that they would see that the benefit outweighed the risk of a vaccination.
At the time, he also urged the public not to stigmatise those that had elected not to be vaccinated, so long as they did not spread disinformation about its safety.
Since the pandemic began there have been more than 10.4 million cases of the coronavirus identified in the UK. Of these, 146,000 have sadly died, with the number of fatal casualties rapidly dropping since the vaccination programme was rolled out.
Prior to the nationwide vaccine rollout, the UK was recording up to 1,820 deaths a day back in January of this year, whereas now, after more than 88.8% of the population has had at least one vaccine dose, the death toll has dropped to just 127 in the last day.
A spokesperson for yesterday’s demonstration said: “We support being given all the information and making decisions for ourselves one way or the other.
“It’s about having a say in how we govern our own bodies and ourselves. It’s about making sure our children have the right to make these choices too, whether that means getting a vaccine or not.”