Dutchess County Libertarian Party Participates in Demonstration against Vaccine Mandates
For immediate release
Amenia, NY, September 2nd 2021: Outside Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie around two hundred people in shifts gathered from across Dutchess and neighboring counties to demonstrate against the recent vaccine mandate, specifically that directed at healthcare professionals. Officers, former candidates and supporters of the Dutchess County Libertarian Party were present to show solidarity with those affected by the vaccine mandate.
On August 16th then Governor Andrew Cuomo imposed a mandate requiring all healthcare professionals in New York State to get the vaccine against COVID-19. Though said mandate was issued shortly after Cuomo announced his imminent resignation under questionable circumstances, the mandate forces all healthcare professionals to get the vaccine by September 27th or face termination. The mandate disallows most religious and medical exemptions.
The Dutchess County Libertarian Party does not oppose vaccination per se, but insists that such choices be voluntary and ideally made by patients upon consultation with physicians.
The person whose individual case sparked the demonstration is Jenna Patton, a nurse in Vassar Brothers Medical Center’s surgical unit for sixteen years, who suffered a stroke at the age of thirty-six despite an exceptionally healthy lifestyle. Patton survived surgery to clear the blockage in a cerebral artery, though the blockage could not be dislodged. Patton’s physician advised her against the COVID-19 vaccine due to its possible side-effect of blood clots, which in her case could easily prove fatal.
“People must be free to choose based on their own values,” said Dutchess County Libertarian Party Chair Daniel Donnelly, who attended the demonstration along with Secretary Victoria Alexander and Vice-Chair Anthony DiLullo. “It is one thing for employers to demand fulfillment of conditions pertinent to doing a job, but this is not the case with the vaccine. This is a lame duck governor’s decree on the heels of his resignation. It does not account for myriad cases of individual healthcare employees who would perform their jobs no better with the vaccine, or in Jenna Patton’s case, who could be severely compromised by it.”
For more information about the Dutchess County Libertarian Party, please visit www.dutchesscountylp.org