Protestors rally against vax mandates; Piedmont delays ultimatum
Tina Free of Clarkesville sees the livelihood of her own family and friends threatened by COVID-19 vaccine mandates, and she has seen enough.
Free helped gather those friends and other like-minded individuals for a series of protests this week around Habersham County.
The protest was part of a national campaign to object to employers mandating the vaccine, soon-to-be backed by President Biden’s proposed OSHA regulations that are already facing legal challenges.
“We have disabled veterans here, we have a nurse here who is going to lose her job if she doesn’t get her vaccine by Dec. 3,” Free said. “We are not anti-vax, we are anti-force. Freedom is not force. Coercion is not consent. We want the right to put what we want in our bodies. As Americans, we have the right to choose.”
Several of the protestors have family members or friends who work at Piedmont University, the site of Wednesday’s demonstration, which had mandated that all employees and student workers be vaccinated by Dec. 3 or be fired.
That was set forth in an Oct. 20 email to all employees, but Piedmont President James Mellichamp announced Wednesday in a town hall with faculty and staff that the mandate was on hold and would not be enforced on that date.
“In light of the recent injunction on the vaccine mandate, we are no longer requiring employees to be vaccinated by Dec. 3. We are awaiting the outcome of the litigation to determine next steps,” Piedmont spokesperson Rachel Pleasant said Thursday.
The protestors were in Clarkesville on Monday, Cornelia on Tuesday and Baldwin on Thursday.
“This is the mark of the beast and a lot of people don’t realize it yet,” Habersham resident Amanda Noah said of the vaccine. “We want medical freedom, we want to stop the mandates and we want the communists to get out of our country, and we want the tyranny to end. If we don’t do something about it, we are not going to get anywhere.”
Noah said she knew more people who had adverse effects from the vaccine than people who died of COVID-19. She also cited a recent report about Dr. Anthony Fauci allegedly being privy to mistreatment of puppies in experiments as reason not to trust him.
“We are the beagles,” Noah said.
The group is planning a larger rally on Sunday, Nov. 28, possibly back at Piedmont, with a few logistical details such as parking yet to be worked out.
Habersham County’s seven-day moving average of COVID-19 cases is down to 2.6 cases per day as of Wednesday, according to the Department of Public Health. That is the lowest the figure has been since July 15.
It was right at this time in 2020 when a second spike of the disease rocketed upward in conjunction with the holidays, but vaccines did not exist at that time.