Vaccine Mandate Protest Held At Casper College
On Thursday, the group Liberty's Place 4 U, along with ReOpen Wyoming and Wyoming Health Freedom, hosted a protest against the proposed vaccine mandate that President Joe Biden plans on implementing at some point in the near future.
The protest in front of the Student Union building at Casper College lasted about an hour and half, with around 65 people holding signs against mandate, both by the federal government as well as the one announced by Banner Health in July.
Speaking at the protest were several Wyoming legislators, including state Senator Anthony Bouchard, state Representative Chuck Gray, and state Representative Robert Wharff.
Each spoke about the need for people to stand their ground against the mandate by Banner Health, and that the people there needed to pressure their politicians to stop the mandate.
Gray said that he believes they are close to having the votes needed to call a special session, but would prefer the governor be the one to call one.
At the session, Gray said they plan on bringing up bills to ban the mandate by Banner Health, the requirements that will be proposed by the Biden Administration, and possible mandates that may be proposed by businesses on their own.
Several health care workers were there as well, including Amber Tibbits, who works in Worland at a Banner Health facility.
Tibbits said she personally is not opposed to people getting vaccinated, but doesn't like the fact that it has to be mandated, and knows of several people at her workplace that have quit when the mandate first began in July.
Tibbits said part of why she hasn't gotten the vaccine is because she doesn't believe the vaccines have had enough time to be tested, and so there could be adverse side affects later down the line.
While it is impossible at this stage to know what the impact of the vaccine will be a year or 10 years from now, based on the history of vaccinations, it's rare that adverse side affects don't show up within two months.
When people go to get the vaccine, they are required to wait 15 minutes after the shot to see if there are any adverse reactions, which is rare on its own, much less years down the line.
The vaccines used by Moderna and Pfizer are both mRNA vaccines, which have been studied extensively for decades and are not a new discovery.