Anti-vax display storms Vivid in bizarre display for Covid ‘fallen’
Disturbing scenes have unfolded at Sydney’s Vivid festival as a march of anti-vax “cookers” stormed the harbourside light show in a strange display.
Disturbing scenes have unfolded at Sydney’s Vivid festival as a march of anti-vax “cookers” stormed the harbourside light show in a strange display.
A video has surfaced on social media of the group parading through The Rocks and Circular Quay precinct carrying sticks with sheets of paper showing the photos and stories of people supposedly injured or killed by the Covid-19 vaccine.
The display was a replica of memorials that have popped up all over Australia known as the ‘Forest of the Fallen’, which attempt to demonstrate the supposed dangers of Covid vaccines.
It is unclear who or which group started this Vivid event, but it was prompted on Facebook groups affiliated with the far-right My Place network – which is infamous harbouring sovereign citizens and spreading Covid-19 misinformation – calling for an “army of people” to join them in the city.
“We will hold the signs and walk as a group,” a screenshot of a post to My Place Australia shared to the my Place Sydney group read.
“[It is] Okay if you don’t want to hold one, or just your presence will be enough to make a large group.”
Footage of the eventual march shows dozens of people walking through The Rocks carrying their signs before coming to a stop near a ‘Vivid 2023’ sign by the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the harbour foreshore.
They can be seen walking past busy restaurants and stopping behind a large crowd of Vivid attendees watching the light display on the Opera House on the other side of the quay.
Anti-vaxxers who shared the video urged their followers to stop being in “denial” to the supposed “perils we face”; but the consensus on Twitter, sparked by a user on the side of science, was that the display was “very disturbing behaviour”.
The Forests of the Fallen was a project started by a Tasmanian woman in 2021, according to media reports. It now involves a number of anti-vax groups and spread nationwide.
One of the first displays to gain national attention was a field of about 500 sticks planted on the lawns of Parliament House, reportedly by a group called ‘Selkie’.
Reader-supported publication Informed Choice also reported that another group called VaxXed Bus have also taken up the mission to plant these memorial ‘forests’ borrowing sticks from groups like ‘Selkie’ to display the stories and faces supposedly harmed by the vaccine.
In April, The Adelaide Advertiser reported an unauthorised‘Forest of the Fallen display appeared just 400 metres from where an Anzac Day Dawn Service was to be held in Murray Bridge – a town about 78km southeast of Adelaide.
The signs appeared on April 24, the day before the hallowed ceremony, and Murray Bridge Mayor Wayne Thorley told the newspaper he hoped the community would not “hijack” Anzac Day commemorations.
Days later, it was reported a Mildura council worker was confronted by an anti-vaxxer while removing another unauthorised display in the regional Victorian town.
The Forest of the Fallen website describes the “silent display[s]” as being “Set up and then left to work its intention on all who are open to witness and interact with it”.
“It is not a protest, it is not a database. It is solely a platform where we share only [Covid-19] injection deaths and injuries that I have personally found, only where stories have been publicly shared and published on multiple sources,” the unnamed site owner wrote.
“Some have been personally shared to me, but the majority are not.”
The website insists it is attempting to “gently alert” the public to censored information, but is “not offering medical advice”. And as the forests purport to share the stories of “vaccinated people” the website rejects the notion it is an “anti-vax display”.
Though technically true, that does not negate the fact the memorial displays are spreading dangerous misinformation about Covid-19 vaccine injuries and deaths.
For all its visual impact, the hundreds of supposedly dead and injured people it claims to show are a massive overstatement of facts – when, in fact, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has reported little more than a dozen vaccine-linked deaths.
The TGA’s latest Covid-19 vaccine safety report has identified 14 reports where the cause of death was linked to vaccination, from 986 reports. And there have been no new vaccine-related deaths identified since 2022.
“Vaccines can lead to death in extremely rare instances. However, most deaths that occur after vaccination are not caused by the vaccine,” the TGA says.
As of May 28 2023, there have been a total of 138,730 adverse event reports to the TGA – from more than 67.4 million doses of Covid vaccines administered – making for a rate of 2.1 per 1000 doses.
The authority said in large populations where people have underlying conditions that may cause death, “the link between the vaccine and death is usually coincidental – not caused by the vaccine”.
“If we identify a new death likely to be related to vaccination, we will publish this information promptly in a vaccine safety report, as we have for all other cases since the start of the vaccine rollout.”
350 trains cancelled, travel chaos
Commuters are facing worsening travel chaos as hundreds of trains have been cancelled following a bitter dispute over $4500 bonuses.
Muslim leader compares nurses to Sam Kerr
A Muslim leader has compared the vile anti-Semitic comments of two nurses to Matilda captain Sam Kerr’s outburst in a London cab.
Pregnant women are afraid, says midwife
A NSW Health nurse has said pregant Jewish women are afraid after a video surfaced of Sydney nurses allegedly making threats against Israeli patients.