It was not clear exactly how many people showed up Tuesday in Los Alamos, N.M., to protest a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for Los Alamos National Laboratory employees, though local media reported that they observed several hundred people, some of whom worked for the laboratory.
The Local Los Alamos Reporter put the size of the crowd near Ashley Pond at between 400 and 500 people. The Reporter “wandered through the crowd early in the event and observed that many in attendance were not Lab employees.”
The local Los Alamos Daily Post reported that there were “a couple of hundred LANL workers” at the protest, which was organized by the group New Mexico Freedoms Alliance: an organization with ties to a small business called unMasked LLC organized earlier this year by a Santa Fe man.
Los Alamos National Laboratory management and operations contractor Triad National Security has mandated that its employees and subcontractors either receive a COVID-19 vaccination by Oct. 15 or be subject to firing.
After Los Alamos mandated the vaccination as a condition of employment, the management and operations contractor at the Savannah River Site followed suit, as did the DOE nuclear-cleanup contractor at the Oak Ridge site in Tennessee. Sources have told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing that more mandates could be on the way this week.
Los Alamos put its mandate in place after the Department of Energy ordered that anyone who works on DOE property but is unwilling to provide proof of full COVID-19 vaccination be regularly tested for the disease and restricted from official travel.
