Anti-mask and anti-vax anger

Unvaccinated people make up a relatively small minority of Connecticut residents, and those who oppose masks in schools and other indoor settings are outnumbered as well. Both groups, however, have made their arguments with increasing volume and vitriol.

Last weekend at the Capitol, more than 100 anti-mask protesters demanded that Connecticut children be allowed to go maskless in school. They waved “Unmask our children” signs and accusing public officials of “medical tyranny.” The event came only days after protesters carrying those same signs had chased Lamont from his event in Cheshire with profanity and comparisons to Nazi Germany, screaming and knocking on his SUV as he attempted to leave.

Days after the Cheshire confrontation, Lamont was asked whether he thought the protesters’ minds could be changed.

“I’m not sure me sitting down and having a conversation is going to move some of these folks,” the governor said. “The anger was visceral.”

Down Washington Street from the anti-mask protesters last weekend, several dozen Hartford HealthCare employees gathered to protest the health system’s vaccine mandate. They shouted through megaphones at passing cars, demanding they be allowed to remain employed without receiving a COVID-19 vaccine.

One woman briefly argued with a police officer who asked her to step out of the road and onto the sidewalk. A few yards away, a man showed off a large banner reading, “Shove your vaccine up your ass.”

At one point, a man holding a flag adorned with a crude reference to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris stood near a group of protesters attempting to speak to the assembled crowd. When one of rally organizers asked him to move so as to not make the event overly “political,” the two began shouting at each other and firing insults.

The crowd’s mood brightened only when a small caravan of cars drove past waving flags that said “Trump won” and “F*** Biden.”

“We shouldn’t be forced to take this vaccine. We shouldn’t be forced to do weekly testing. We shouldn’t

be forced to wear a mask because we haven’t taken the vaccine,” Liza Blanchette, Nachaug Hospital nurse, told The Courant. “All of this is coercion.”