LOS ANGELES – An unemployed stand-up comic originally from New Jersey. An actor and conservative podcast presenter dressed in a white lab coat. A hornet who has run several unsuccessful campaigns for Congress in Los Angeles. And at least a few who had been to Washington on the day of the uprising at the Capitol.
They were among the motley crew of so-called anti-vaxxers who recently gathered at the entrance to the massive vaccination site at Dodger Stadium to protest the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine.
The loosely formed coalition represents a new faction in the long-standing California anti-vaccine movement. And the protest was the latest sign that Californians have become the unlikely standard carriers for aggressive criticism of the vaccines, even as virus cases continue to spread across the state.
California, which has seen an average of 500 daily deaths related to the virus in the past week, will soon become the state with the highest number of deaths from the coronavirus, surpassing New York.
For months, far-right activists across the country have opposed rules for wearing masks, company locks, curfews, and local public health officials, viewing the government’s response to the virus as a breach of individual freedoms. But with masks and lockdowns becoming an increasingly routine part of American life, some protesters have shifted the focus of their anger against the government to the Covid-19 vaccines.
Last week, the same small but vocal group of protesters who previously staged anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests in the Los Angeles area at Dodger Stadium disrupted a massive vaccination site that delivers an average of 6,120 shots per day. About 50 protesters – some carrying signs saying “Don’t be a lab rat!” and “Covid = Scam” – marched to the entrance and caused the Los Angeles Fire Department to shut down the city-run site for about an hour.
The disruption illustrates the increasingly confrontational tendency of some of the state’s vaccine opponents, who have long argued that mandatory vaccination laws in schools outstrip the government. Many were already skeptical of vaccine science after reading online disinformation sites claiming that vaccines for young children cause autism, a claim that has long been refuted.
In California, the anti-vaccination movement has been popular among Hollywood celebrities and wealthy parents for decades, and it gained momentum when state legislatures passed one of the strictest mandatory childhood vaccination laws in 2015. Previously, parents had opted out of vaccinations by seeking exemptions. claiming that vaccines violated their personal beliefs, but the law eliminated that option. The popularity of those exemptions led to immunization rates dropping to 80 percent or below in public and private schools and kindergartens in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and other affluent Los Angeles communities.
“Anti-vaccine attitudes are as old as vaccines themselves,” said Richard M. Carpiano, a professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies the anti-vaccine movement. “The other thing that goes with this is the welfare movement, this idea which is obviously better. There is a broader kind of mistrust of Big Pharma, and of medical care and medical professions. There is a real market for discontent that these groups can really take hold of. “
In California’s Covid-19 era, vaccine opponents have increasingly aligned with pro-Trump, working-class people who sometimes like to embrace extreme tactics to voice their beliefs.
Anti-vaccine activists in the state have sometimes been aggressive for a long time. But in the past two years, and in the months of the coronavirus pandemic, there has been an increase in confrontational and threatening tactics.
They attacked a Sacramento lawmaker and threw menstrual blood at lawmakers in the Senate chambers of the State Capitol in 2019, and last spring helped pressure the Orange County chief health officer to resign by publicly disclosing the official’s home address. to make. Last month, two weeks before the stadium’s vaccination protest, a group of women threatened lawmakers during a budget hearing in the Capitol, telling senators they “didn’t shoot you” and “didn’t buy guns for nothing” .
“I think the most concerning thing is that they are escalating,” said Senator Richard Pan, a pediatrician and Democrat who wrote vaccination laws. Pan was hit in the back by an anti-vaccine activist in 2019 and was the likely target of the bloodshed incident in Senate chambers that year.
“Not only does this movement spread false or misinformation about vaccines or lies about vaccines, which can be harmful in and of themselves, but they also aggressively harass, threaten and intimidate people who try to share accurate information about vaccines,” he said.
Protesters who attended and helped organize the Dodger Stadium demonstration said they did not attempt to enter the grounds or block the entrance. They blamed firefighters for overreacting to their presence and closing the gates, saying their goal was to train those waiting for vaccinations, but not prevent them from driving in to get their shots.
One of the protesters, a 48-year-old actor whose first name is Nick and who asked for his last name not to be published due to death threats received by the group, said he did not believe any of the protesters were previously part of established anti-vaccine groups. in the state. “This is all a result of this whole Covid-19 crisis,” he said. “It started with wearing the mask and evolved into concerns about 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 on January 22 at the age of 86. .
Aaron was vaccinated against the coronavirus in Atlanta on Jan. 5, and anti-vaccine activists, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., used his death to make 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 am not a violent person,” said Mr. Lefkowitz. “Nobody in my group is violent or physical or anything, but there are a lot of people who don’t want to use this vaccine or are forced to use it.”
No one was arrested, but city officials, including the police chief, were troubled by the symbolism and global headlines – that a small group of vaccine opponents had temporarily shut down one of the country’s largest vaccination sites and walk without masks and sing among elderly residents who waiting in their car for their vaccination appointments.
“The view is that it seemed like the protesters could symbolically disrupt that line, and I think we have a greater public responsibility to ensure that that symbolism is not repeated,” chief Michel R. Moore told Los Angeles. Police commission during a virtual meeting.
Demonstrators planned to return to Dodger Stadium and were more stimulated by the attention than discouraged by the criticism of social media. Mr. Lefkowitz said that after the fire brigade closed the gates, he immediately took this as a positive sign for his group.
“They are indirectly helping us because now I think, ‘Oh, this is going to make the news,'” said Mr. Lefkowitz.
The ease with which many of the protesters have transitioned from anti-mask to anti-vaccine ideology was seen in a Facebook livestream.
A protester at the site, Omar Navarro, a frequent Republican challenger to California Democrat Representative Maxine Waters, told his Facebook viewers he was “ 100 percent sure ” that voter fraud led to President Biden’s victory, and praised the attempt to California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom called the Democrats “the real virus.”
“They want to cheat us,” said Mr. Navarro in the video. ‘They want to control us. They want to put this muzzle on our face, this mask, which I don’t use. “
One of Southern California’s most prominent anti-vaccine activists, Leigh Dundas, an attorney, spoke at a Washington rally the day before the Capitol riot, posting videos on social media while standing outside the building on Jan.6, shouting, “This is 1776 all over again! “
In May, Mrs. Dundas attempting to get Orange County’s chief health officer, Dr. Nichole Quick, due to her mask order, which was unpopular in the historically conservative province. Dr. Quick received death threats and a security detail. At a meeting of the board of supervisors, Ms. Dundas ridiculed Dr. Quick’s credentials, announced her home address, and said she would let people “do gymnastics in masks in front of her front door, and when people start falling like flies. , and they will. I’m going to ask every first responder within 30 miles to roll lights and sirens to her front door. ”
Dr. Quick resigned almost two weeks later.
Kenneth Austin Bennett, the activist who assaulted Mr. Pan, the state senator, was charged with a felony battery and would be charged again in a few weeks. Rebecca Dalelio, who was arrested after throwing blood from the Senate Gallery, has been charged with sexual assault against a government official and felony hooliganism and has a preliminary hearing this month. A spokeswoman for state senator Toni G. Atkins, the senate president pro tempore, said a report was filed with law enforcement after the women made the threatening comments about weapons in January.
Dr. Pan said the lack of arrests at the Dodger Stadium protest suggested anti-vaccine extremists would feel encouraged.
“There is a history of people bullying and intimidating, and there are few consequences for it, and so they escalate, escalate and escalate,” he said.
Jan Hoffman contributed reporting.