Anti-vaccine activists, reveling in their pandemic successes, will rally in D.C. against mandates

As anti-vaccine activists from across the country prepare to gather on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday, they are hoping their rally will mark a once-fringe movement’s arrival as a lasting force in American society.That hope, some public health experts fear, is justified.Almost two years into the coronavirus pandemic, the movement to challenge vaccines’ safety — and reject vaccine mandates — has never been stronger. Controlled studies of the coronavirus vaccines offer a more accurate picture of how they work, and those studies have repeatedly shown that the medicines cause no serious side effects for the overwhelming majority of people who receive them.Kennedy said the growing number of infections among the vaccinated from the omicron variant of the coronavirus has also eroded public confidence in a key selling point for vaccine mandates — that they stop the spread of the virus to vulnerable populations.Although the vaccines are markedly less effective at stopping infection by the new variant, early evidence shows that they still confer protection against hospitalization or death.“I think there’s a lot more skepticism,” Kennedy said. Among children ages 5 to 11, who became eligible for the shots in November, fewer than 20 percent are vaccinated.A November poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found majorities of unvaccinated adults saying they will “definitely not” get a vaccine and are not confident in the vaccines’ safety.Republicans were much more likely than Democrats to reject the vaccines — another ominous sign for public health officials, who worry that resistance to inoculation could become a permanent trapping of political identity.Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, said the enthusiasm ahead of Sunday’s rally is a dispiriting reminder of how little has been done to combat the anti-vaccine movement’s rise over the past two years.Topol said he has repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, urged federal health officials to do more to counter rampant falsehoods about vaccines.“Misinformation spreads far quicker and more broadly than truth,” Topol said. Public employee associations that have formed to protest their employers’ vaccine mandates, such as Feds for Medical Freedom and D.C. Firefighters Bodily Autonomy Affirmation Group, are also participating.“The goal is to show a unified front of bringing people together — vaccinated, unvaccinated, Democrats, Republicans, all together in solidarity,” said Tune, an unvaccinated 48-year-old from Chicago.