If you’re wondering how we’ll ever put an end to these draconian COVID-19 mandates that are destroying lives and sanity across the world, take heart. History can serve us in this regard
> Over 135 years ago, in 1885, England became the host to a massive anti-vaccination movement that ultimately resulted in people overturning the government’s compulsory vaccination rule
> Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in opposition to compulsory smallpox vaccinations. Many were fined and jailed, but in the end, the government relented and abolished the mandate
> The trucker protest in Canada and elsewhere is almost identical to what happened during smallpox vaccination campaigns more than a century ago, when mass protests and peaceful disobedience broke the government’s tyrannical hold
> The Leicester Model was proven successful in the wake of that 1885 anti-vaccination protest and has been standard ever since. By quarantining infected patients and improving public hygiene, smallpox was finally eradicated
If you’re wondering how we’ll ever put an end to these draconian COVID-19 mandates that are destroying lives and sanity across the world, take heart. History can serve us in this regard. The parallels between the COVID-19 pandemic and its countermeasures that of previous smallpox pandemics are fascinating to behold, and therein we can also find the answer to our current predicament.
Smallpox, a highly infectious and disfiguring illness with a fatality rate around 30%,1 has been with us for many centuries, probably thousands of years. During the last four centuries, forced mass vaccination has been a recurring countermeasure relied on by government during these kinds of outbreaks, often with devastating results, and there have always been large portions of society that opposed it.
In the 1700s, Boston, Massachusetts, was hit by a series of outbreaks, and the introduction of a vaccine led to violent rebellion by those who believed it was dangerous and a violation of God’s will. Local newspapers were rife with disputes for and against the vaccine.2
The hypodermic needle had not yet been invented at this time, so the vaccination consisted of rubbing some cowpox pus into an open wound on the arm. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, who introduced the inoculation at the urgings of Rev. Cotton Mather, was forced into hiding and was eventually arrested. Mather’s home was firebombed.
In 1862, it was Los Angeles, California’s turn. Compulsory vaccination was again rolled out, and anyone who refused was subject to arrest. Infected people were terrified of being forcibly quarantined in a “pest house,” miles outside the city limits, and for good reason. It was a place where you were dumped to die, with not so much as a bedsheet for comfort.3
The Anti-Vaccination Rebellion of 1885
In the decades to come, smallpox outbreaks were occurring all over the world, and forced inoculation was typically the answer, even though it had its own risks. In 1885, England became the host to a massive anti-vaccination movement that ultimately resulted in people overturning the government’s compulsory vaccination rule.
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