INTERNATIONAL: Thousands have attended the "Defeat the Mandates" rally in Washington, D.C., on Sunday ,January 23, to protest the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine and mask policies.

Dr. Pierre Kory has told a crowd outside the Lincoln Memorial t ; "They tell us to vaccinate ourselves endlessly and boost ourselves even though that single strategy has failed, is failing, and will continue to fail. It must stop,"

More than 860,000 people have died due to Covid-19 in the United States in the two-year-long pandemic which weighed heavily on the economy.

On January 13, The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses - a policy the conservative justices deemed an improper imposition on the lives and health of many Americans - while endorsing a separate federal vaccine requirement for healthcare facilities.

Many U.S. companies have implemented mandatory mask-wearing policies to protect their workers, as have various municipalities and cultural organizations.

Masks remain polarizing. Biden, a Democrat, has recently urged people to wear masks and noted that about a third of Americans report they do not wear masks at all. Many Republican-leaning states have no mask requirements. Some Democratic-governed states such as California have reimposed indoor mask mandates.

^{PHOTO: WIDE SHOTS OF RALLY / SOUNDBITES FROM RALLY PARTICIPANTS}