One of the most prominent fears that freedom advocates in America have today is that the unvaccinated, those who remain free from the jab purposefully, could soon become second-class citizens.
Part of the reason for this is that, as long as the vaccination rate remains lower than the threshold needed for herd immunity, local governments will continue to try to find ways to entice the unvaccinated to reconsider.
And not everyone is going with the positive reinforcement angle here, as several organizations and businesses have begun to decide that they’ll simply treat the unvaccinated as though they were subpar.
The hordes of people expected to descend on Chicago’s Grant Park for the Lollapalooza music festival this week will be required to show proof that they’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19 or tested negative for the disease within the last three days.
The four-day festival starts Thursday and is expected to be back at full capacity, with roughly 100,000 daily attendees. After missing last summer because of the threat of the coronavirus, it will easily be Chicago’s largest gathering since the pandemic started, and one of the country’s.
Here’s where it gets a little tyrannical:
This year’s festival will look very different than in the past. To gain entry, attendees will have to present their vaccination cards or a printed copy of a negative COVID-19 test that is no more than 72 hours old. That means that anyone with a four-day pass who isn’t vaccinated will have to get tested twice. Furthermore, anyone who isn’t vaccinated will have to wear a mask.
This is just the latest confusing and confounding but of mask-vax confusion that has gripped the nation in the last few days, as the CDC began adjusting its own guidance in the face of the growing threat of the delta variant.
