Anti-Mask/Anti-Vaxx: A New Front Opens On The Domestic War On Terror

NYTimes |  For months, far-right activists have rallied against masks and lockdowns imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Now some protesters have shifted their focus to the Covid-19 vaccine.

One of the protesters, a 48-year-old actor whose first name is Nick and who asked that his last name not be published because of death threats the group had received, said he did not believe that any of the protesters were part of previously established anti-vaccine groups in the state. “This has all stemmed as a result of this whole Covid-19 crisis,” he said. “It started with the mask wearing and evolved to now being concerned over the vaccine. It’s all about civil liberties.”

The lead organizer, Jason Lefkowitz, 42, a stand-up comic and server at a Beverly Hills restaurant, said the catalyst for the stadium protest was the death of Hank Aaron, the baseball legend who died at the age of 86 on Jan. 22.

Mr. Aaron was vaccinated for the coronavirus in Atlanta on Jan. 5, and anti-vaccine activists, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have seized on his death to draw a link. The Fulton County medical examiner has said there was no evidence that he had an allergic or anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine.

“I’m not a violent person,” Mr. Lefkowitz said. “Nobody in my group is violent or physical or anything, but there’s a lot of people that don’t want to take this vaccine or be forced into it.”

No one was arrested, but city officials, including the police chief, were disturbed by the symbolism and the global headlines — that a small group of vaccine opponents had temporarily shut down one of the country’s largest vaccination sites and were walking and chanting mask-free among older residents waiting in their cars for their vaccine appointments.

“The optics of it is that it appeared that the protesters were able to symbolically interfere with that line, and I think that we have a greater public responsibility to ensure that that symbolism is not repeated,” Chief Michel R. Moore told the Los Angeles Police Commission at a virtual meeting.