Free the vaccine: Protesters rally
outside of Pfizer HQ in Midtown
Protesters marched carrying a gigantic needle.
BY DEAN MOSES
Protesters are demanding vaccines for
everyone from one of the pharmaceutical
giants responsible for producing
the shots.
New York is beginning to see the other
side of the COVID-19 pandemic with infection
rates at an all-time low. As the mayor
and governor begin to champion the city’s
comeback through reopening ceremonies
and tourism promotions, a protest group is
seeking to remind vaccine giant Pfi zer that
there are those still suffering due to lack of
access to the life-saving needle.
Dubbed “Free the vaccine,” activists
are calling for the inoculation to be swiftly
afforded to counties with rising death tolls.
On June 3, the group took their fi ght to
the Pfi zer World Headquarters on 235 East
42nd Street.
“Pharmaceutical companies are keeping
the vaccine from people in low-income
countries. While increasing numbers in New
York City are getting vaccinated, we are still
seeing huge numbers of people around the
world who aren’t going to get vaccinated
or who have vaccines in their country until
PHOTOS BY DEAN MOSES
2024,” Emily Sanderson, Senior Coordinator
at Grassroots Advocacy said, adding, “We
know that every day that pharmaceutical
companies and rich nations deny these vaccines,
The group rallied outside the Pfizer world headquarters.
that means thousands of additional
deaths happen all over the world.”
Brandishing a gigantic mock needle,
the protesters then marched to the European
Union Mission buildings, blaming the
countries they represent for preventing the
wide dispersal and increased production.
Outside the Canada Mission on 666 3rd
Avenue, the group waved signs shaped
like tombstones inscribed with the names
of countries suffering the most, along with
their death tolls.
Sanderson claims that as third-world
countries struggle to obtain vaccines, mutations
of the virus are occurring making a
potential of a variant that could be resistant
to the vaccines. According to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
they are still monitoring the vaccine’s resistance
to variant cases, stating, “New variants
of the virus that causes COVID-19 are
spreading in the United States and in other
parts of the world. Current data suggest
that COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use
in the United States offer protection against
most variants currently spreading in the
United States. However, some variants
might cause illness in some people even
after they are fully vaccinated.”
Sanderson and dozens of protesters have
demonstrated three times outside of the
Pfi zer offi ces over the past three months,
all the while stating, “We can’t let corporations
come ahead of people.”
In order to represent the mass deaths
in regions like India, the group fell to the
sidewalk and remained motionless for several
minutes while fellow protesters drew
abound their bodies with chalk. Marching
away, they also left the outline of their
bodies behind to remind those inside the
offi ces of the countless dead.
As they marched through Midtown, the
protesters chanted, “Vaccines for all” and
“People before profi ts.”
One young demonstrator brandished two mock tombstones.
36 June 10, 2021 Schneps Media