Protestors Gather at New York City Hall to Oppose Vaccine Passport

Protestors participate in a march against vaccine mandates around New York City Hall in Manhattan on Aug. 9, 2021. Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times

A crowd of New Yorkers from many different walks of life gathered in front of City Hall on Monday to protest against the vaccine pass mandate recently announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The mandate is scheduled to be enforced on Sept. 13.

The Epoch Times talked to the organizers of the protest who voiced their reasons for attending.

Josephine Rose, one of the organizers of the protest, held a megaphone and led a march after the rally. She said that as a city worker, she feels that the vaccine mandate is “government overreach.”

“I was just told that by the 13th, I either get vaccinated, or I have to get weekly tested, but it is my body and my choice,” Rose told The Epoch Times. “I feel like it’s government overreach, we should all have a choice. I’m not an anti-vaxxer. But I believe in the choice of the people.”

Josephine Rose leads a protest against mandatory vaccines at the New York City Hall on Aug. 9, 2021. Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times

She further voiced her concerns about the safety of the vaccine.

“I think on VAERS there have been 12,000 deaths reported,” Rose said. “I was vaccinated as a child but as an adult, I decide over my body, my parents no longer have any rights over me and it should be the same with the government.”

VAERS stands for Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, a publicly available database.

Protestors gather to oppose vaccine passports at New York City Hall on Aug. 9, 2021. Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times

The Epoch Times wasn’t able to independently confirm the abovementioned numbers, but the National Vaccine Information Center, a non-profit dedicated to “preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education and advocating for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws,” complied a set of data from July 30 which states that so far, 12,366 cases of death following COVID-19 vaccination were reported to VAERS, as well as over 545,000 cases of adverse reactions.

However, according to a disclaimer on the VAERS website, “inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causality.”

Another one of the main organizers, Kevin, who preferred not to give his last name, told The Epoch Times that his concern with the “vaccine pass” is that the whole system has a technocratic side that would monitor the public and advance the digitalization of people’s lives.

“My concern is that the [vaccine] pass is opening the door to a completely tyrannical, new system of surveillance and control. I think more and more people are finally understanding this. This is not about so-called vaccines,” Kevin said.

Kevin, organizer of a rally and march to protest against mandatory vaccines at New York City Hall on Aug. 9, 2021. Enrico Trigoso/The Epoch Times

“This is about surveillance and digitizing our economy digitizing our everyday life. You know, and it’s already been happening over the past 10, 20 years with our phones, but they’re taking it to the next level now where everything is tracked remotely through your phone, and now they’re advancing the technology,” he noted.