As COVID-19 variant spreads, locals protest face mask and vaccine mandates
As some drivers blared their horns in support, a group of about 40 residents rallied outside Conway City Hall on Tuesday afternoon against face covering mandates and requirements that people receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
They held signs reading “End Medical Tyranny,” “God gave you an immune system, let it work,” and “It’s not about science it’s about control.” Some chanted “Freedom!”
They were there, crowd members said, to help fend off any possible face covering and vaccine mandates by school districts and local and state governments.
“My job was threatened because I will not get the vaccine,” Robert Jones, a member of Grand Strand Patriots, a conservative political group, told the group. He said he works for a company out of state.
Mask mandates are sparse around Horry County. Only the City of Conway requires visitors to wear a mask in city-owned buildings. Horry County recommends masks in its buildings. Still protesters such measures are a creeping overreach of government.
Speakers and protesters took particular issue with Conway city council, which announced last week that its regular meeting Tuesday evening would take place virtually rather than in-person due to the spread of COVID-19.
“We pay for these buildings that they’re deciding who is and who is not allowed to come into here,” said speaker and congressional candidate Jeanette Spurlock, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Tom Rice (R-Myrtle Beach). “We are giving them way too much power.”
The protesters aren’t necessarily against wearing face masks or receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, but they don’t want to be forced to do either of those things, said Spurlock, who helped organize the protest.
“We want everyone to have as much information they can about where they can be vaccinated if they choose to, where they can get their masks if they choose to,” she said. “But what this is about is we don’t want to be told that we have to do it. We’re looking at medical freedom and what everything that that entails.”
The coronavirus is currently spreading rapidly in Horry County, with nearly 3,500 new confirmed cases in the past two weeks, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
In Horry County Schools, more than 12,000 students, a quarter of the student body, were forced to quarantine at home over the past three weeks due to the spread of the virus. The current spread of cases is the greatest its ever been across the Grand Strand, DHEC data shows.
Despite that spread, local governments have been loathe to reinstate face covering mandates. Horry County Council members have said recently they don’t have the votes available to put a mask mandate back in place. Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach have not made moves to restore a mask mandate.
At the state level, legislators put a proviso in South Carolina’s 2021-2022 budget barring school districts from instituting mask mandates, a move that’s been challenged numerous times in recent weeks and months.
Protesters said they still worried about government overreach, with some adding that they don’t trust scientific guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or President Biden’s Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“I am not Fauci’s lab rat,” read one sign a protester held.
Irene Williams, 62, is a recent Grand Strand transplant from New Jersey. She said she won’t get the COVID-19 vaccine because she has heart problems and worries about how it and other vaccines, like the annual flu vaccine, will affect her heart.
“My body my choice,” Williams said about vaccines.
She also said she believes that children wearing face coverings in schools causes them to get sick. Masks do not have that affect on children, according to doctors.
Karin Colla, a Colorado transplant living in Carolina Forest, said she has a lung disease wearing masks hinders her breathing.
“I can’t even go to the doctor without wearing a mask, and I have COPD. I’ll pass out if I wear a mask,” she said.
As several speakers addressed the crowd over a microphone, some drivers along Main Street in Conway honked their car horns and cheered for the protesters. The protesters cheered in response.
Ken Moran, with the Grand Strand Patriots group, praised Gov. Henry McMaster’s stance against mask and vaccine mandates, but criticized local governments that have discussed mandates.
“Governor McMaster did the right thing and said, ‘No, this is South Carolina, you can’t violate the First Amendment’.” Moran said. “But where are your city councilmen this evening? Where is the city council? They’re cowering at home behind computers because they don’t want to face you, and they don’t want to face COVID.”
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 8:42 PM.
