(upbeat music)
(heart beating)
- The discussion around vaccines and mandates
tends to pit red state versus blue.
But I had heard there was vaccine hesitancy
and misinformation in the elitist
of the elite blue corners of the U.S.,
so I headed to a protest in sunny Southern California.
I came to California curious
if the anti-vax mandate crowd would talk to me,
then I realized I brought a camera
and we're in Southern California.
I think I'll be fine.
Is this an anti-vaccination--
- It is not an anti-vax, so don't go there.
- Don't go there. - Please don't.
- Are you vaccinated?
- I am not.
- So you're anti-vax.
- I do not want to get the vaccination for COVID.
- What do you support?
- People's freedom of choice.
- Don't you benefit from a society
that supports that by getting vaccinated?
You shouldn't be able to force that stuff on people.
It's step one, then it'll be step two, step three.
- What's step two?
(car horns honking)
- Who knows? I'm not a conspiracy theorist so I don't wanna-
- But didn't we have step one with polio?
- They didn't really mandate that.
The people were docile back in the industrious age.
They were more than willing to take these shots.
- Polio is mandated for students going to school.
- Polio has to be because we know what it's done.
- Don't we know what COVID's done?
(car horns honking)
- Uh...
- I mean there's 750,000 people who have a pretty good idea.
- Dig it.
- Do you trust the vaccine whatsoever?
- Zero, like 0%.
And because I know what the end goal is--
- What's the end goal?
- Bill Gates said in 2015,
if we can get all these health things, vaccination,
we can reduce the population by 10 to 15%.
What's 15% of 7 billion? That's a billion people.
- The vaccine is all about depopulation.
- They've said that.
- So this is just Bill Gates' pet project
to depopulate the globe.
- He's probably a puppet of the people above him.
- Which are who?
- No clue.
- It's a big claim to say there is a giant plan
to kill half the population
and not have a Thanos to point to.
So why does the conversation on this SoCal boardwalk
sound like a Shoney's in Lancaster, PA?
I talked to Derek Beres who's been tracking
this coastal elite anti-vax movement for years.
- You've had a long anti-vaccine sentiment here.
Specifically in 2017, there was a measles outbreak
right over there in Brentwood, in Santa Monica,
where an eradicated disease in America sprung up again.
This idea of bodily sovereignty has really come about
since the pandemic, but that has been taught for decades
inside of yoga studios in America.
- Bodily sovereignty sounds a lot like
what I told my parents I was doing
freshman year of high school.
- You have pretty liberal parents then.
- Yeah.
This is my body, I can do what I want with it
as often as I wanna do, wherever I want in the living room.
- You're still here.
- People hear about anti-vax and they think MAGA world.
But now we're seeing this wellness,
which we see maybe more to the left.
- Center for Countering Digital Hate identified
12 practitioners in the wellness space
that were responsible for something like 70%
of the vaccine disinformation on social media.
- [Jordan] It turns out ignoring the advice
of the medical experts and sacrificing the health
of the community at large can actually be quite profitable
for the wellness business.
- Everyone knows about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine
at this moment, the idea that that could help.
You have meditations that are sold
that are supposed to ward off COVID.
You also have different breathing techniques.
Some practitioners, including here in Los Angeles,
teach breathing workshops
because COVID is a respiratory illness
and so their belief is, well, if you're breathing properly
it won't actually affect you.
- You can breathe your way out of COVID.
- Absolutely. - That's a class
you can pay for here.
- Yes, that is absolutely a class you can pay for.
- So, like, how many smoothies does one have to ingest
to get to the point where they can completely disregard
the health of the community they live in?
- In Los Angeles, one, because they're usually $25.
- I never knew there was that many parts of honey to ingest.
- (chuckles) And the honey is blessed by a shaman
from Tibet, so you're paying for that as well,
you have to remember that.
- I wanted to talk to these people,
so I set up outside of the bougiest health food market
in Venice Beach.
And I also had a hankering for an activated charcoal,
bone broth, rose hip smoothie cure-all.
Are you vaccinated?
- Maybe. No, (chuckles) I'm not.
- You're not. - No.
- Are you fearful of catching COVID?
- No. - No.
- I think that it's more about the lifestyle
versus like vaccinated-not vaccinated.
- What is the lifestyle?
- Like being healthy, like taking care of yourself,
like your mind, your body.
If you live a lifestyle of wellness,
then your body should be able to handle COVID.
- So what do you recommend for basic public health?
- Eating healthy, boosting your immunity system,
and don't watch the news 'cause it's just brainwashing you
with fear, and the fear is lowering your frequency.
I only eat fish and only certain kind of fish.
Like, for example, I don't eat tuna.
And I actually found that out when I was trying to feed tuna
to my cat and she shook her head and walked off.
- Do you often take medical advice from a cat?
- In general, from nature. - From nature.
What do you think of the COVID vaccine?
- I don't think it's a vaccine.
I think it's snapping the DNA in half.
- Where did you hear this? A Siamese cat?
You'd recommend for public health people meditating?
- Of course.
- People working out in groups?
- Definitely.
- Eating healthy? - Definitely.
- COVID vaccine?
- No. - No.
- A coffee enema?
- Possibly.
- Okay, maybe on the coffee enema;
definite hard no on the COVID vaccine.
- No.
- I'm not an anti-vaxxer, per se.
I'm a staunch anti-mandate person.
- Can I ask, are you both vaccinated?
- Sorry, I don't wanna put-- - We don't wanna
put our status. - Don't wanna put the status?
- No.
- If you don't wanna share your vaccine status, that's okay.
I'm vaccinated, and look how I look.
Don't judge me.
I know everybody in L.A. is judging people.
I'm an L.A. five, a New York six, and D.C. 12.
- I can tell.
- Cold, but fair.
Now what say you, dude?
I wanna talk about wellness and public health.
And trust me, we'll get to your script later.
Can I ask you, are you vaccinated?
- I am.
- Do you find that most people in Los Angeles
that you encounter are vaccinated?
- Like, I'm kind of a New Yorker
and there there's a sense of like civic duty.
There isn't so much of that here, to be totally honest.
It's more like, "Well, I had to get vaccinated
"because I'm planing a trip to Tulum."
- So if more Americans were dangled a trip to Tulum,
we might get that vaccination rate up in the 90s.
- Maybe so, yeah.
- No matter what part of the anti-vax world they come from,
there's one comparison they just can't resist making.
- I think what's interesting,
especially coming from Germany,
I think history is repeating itself right now.
- What are you saying? That what's happening--
- With the vaccine mandates and everything,
it's like it's turning into a police state.
- And you're equating it to World War II-era Germany.
- Yes. Where's your papers?
Where are your papers?
It's very similar to the Hitler times.
- But, like, Jewish people are fleeing Poland
because they can't get into gyms?
- It's not funny.
- But it's that comparison though--
- You just didn't get the point, sorry.
I'm good. Bye. (laughs)
- Maybe historical dramas aren't big in L.A.,
but certainly there is commercial viability
in saving humanity, right?
We're in L.A., maybe there's an elevator pitch here, right?
So zoom in on a country at war with itself
and then a magical cure comes along
that helps people take care of the rest of their community
by making a choice to help other people.
(dramatic music)
Would you buy that ticket?
- No. - No? Okay.
(upbeat music)