A grassroots organization defeated a government-backed COVID-19 vaccine mandate in Ecuador’s Loja Province on Aug 5. On July 6, the Emergency Operations Committee (EOC), which is a crisis response branch of Ecuador’s state-level government, released a decree mandating COVID-19 vaccines for province residents over 16 years of age by Aug. 9. The decree, which came as a shock to residents, imposed restrictions on unvaccinated individuals, including entry into government buildings, bill payment locations, banks, restaurants and other areas of daily commerce. Nick Vasey, the founder of Human Rights Ecuador, spoke to The Epoch Times about the steps his organization took before the mandate went into effect. “You had to extrapolate the real end result of all this,” Vasey said. “They [EOC] gave the Ecuadorian community zero time to respond to their decree and planned to steamroll the population.” Human Rights Ecuador is a Loja-based group that promotes medical freedom. Vasey’s …