Utah Stories

Anti-Vaccine Protestors Descend On The Bayou

Protestors descended on a local restaurant (The Bayou) in downtown Salt Lake City to demonstrate their displeasure of the idea of the government requiring vaccine passports to enter restaurants. Little did the protestors know that the Bayou was closed, and the restaurant didn’t determine the law of the land.

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Protestors at the Utah Bayou in Salt Lake City.

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Editor’s Note (September 11th, 1:02 PM): — We incorrectly assumed in the new video that the people on the roof were protestors. They are not, they are the owners and friends of the Bayou.

Editor’s Note (made September 9th, 8:30 AM): YouTube has removed the original video that went along with this post, indicating we have “violated their community guidelines due to medical misinformation”.

 

The only mention of medical information was regarding those who might logically choose to not get vaccinated due to immune compromising illnesses, and those who have previously had Covid and therefore only one injection may be sufficient for them due to reaching immunity plateau. This is according to the articles: published in Nature and Science, two of the leading peer-reviewed scientific journals in the world. We, unfortunately, did not cite our sources, nor did we provide details for our claims, so perhaps this was the reason for the removal. We still believe this is a very important topic of debate so we revised the video and uploaded the new version below.

-Richard Markosian

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Protestors descended on a local restaurant (The Bayou) in downtown Salt Lake City to demonstrate their displeasure with the idea of the government requiring vaccine passports to enter restaurants. Little did the protestors know that the Bayou was closed, and the restaurant didn’t determine the law of the land.

Likely they did know this, but the popular user forum Reddit, used the protestors at the butt of their jokes, and it was a little strange that one restaurant would receive the ire of the anti-vaxxers group. Such is the growing divide we are witnessing due to social media and the interplanetary, filter bubbles, and echo chambers of displeasure that two groups have for each other, who will not actually speak or debate each other.

Utah Stories recognized the severity of this divide when we asked representatives of both sides to come onto our program to discuss vaccine passports and when the vaccine passport advocate learned who was to be our second guest, he said that he couldn’t come onto a program or platform that offers the other side or this particular person, a voice.

This story is indicative of the new media environment we find ourselves in. One side holds an extreme view, and those who don’t also hold or maintain that same extreme view, or wish to discuss this view, advocates for this view deem the heretic to be canceled. 

Vaccine passports seem to be one of the most politically charged issues currently in Utah (where currently 35% of Utahns are refusing to be vaccinated).

 Is there any sort of compromise that will appease both sides? Or will this remain as the issue that separates those who want more government control in the interest of safety, as opposed to those who wish the government to remain out of determining who is permitted to enter private establishments? 

We present both sides of the vaccine passport issue in Utah. Why are LDS Church members especially afraid to get vaccinated?

 

Watch the new video here

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