(KNSI) – On Thursday afternoon, hundreds gathered between Hester Park and St. Cloud Hospital to protest COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
Many attendees, some with children in tow, held up signs opposing vaccination, mandates or both.
Patti Carroll, who was helping register attendees at a table in Hester Park, said that as of about 5:30 p.m., roughly 400 to 500 people had participated. She described the protest as “really more about medical freedom.”
Though many protesters gathered in front of St. Cloud Hospital — where approximately 30 patients are currently hospitalized for severe COVID-19 — Carroll said the protest concerned vaccination mandates in general. CentraCare, which operates St. Cloud Hospital, does not currently have a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for staff. Other health care groups in the state, like Allina Health and the Mayo Clinic, are requiring employees to be vaccinated.
Dene Dryden/KNSI News
One attendee, Krystal Pallister, was at the protest because she “never thought that living here in a free country, especially where bodily autonomy is such — it’s a human right, it’s our right — we might be forced to put something into our bodies that we literally don’t know much about.”
Pallister says she works as a housekeeper in medical facilities (she declined to name her employer and the health care companies her employer contracts with). She said she and her 1-year-old son have received other vaccines prior to COVID, and they both caught COVID last fall. When asked what she would do if her employer did require vaccination, she said she would accept being fired.
“I’m really hoping it does not come to that because I really, really love my position with where I work,” Pallister said. “I also have a disability and they’ve gone above and beyond to make sure that I’m always taken care of. They’re just amazing, and I would hate to have this vaccine be what gets me fired. But it’s very scary and it’s a very real potential, so I did go out searching for another job.”
When asked about what she needed that could change her mind about COVID vaccinations, Pallister said more time.
“More long-term studies, which I know is literally time, because it has not been around for as long as I would like to see for studies,” Pallister said.
Thursday was also the day the state of Minnesota crossed the threshold of having 70 percent of its 16-and-older population vaccinated against COVID with at least one vaccine dose. In Stearns County, the 16-and-older vaccination rate is 53 percent.
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