These New Yorkers Are Willing To Risk Their Jobs Over COVID-19 Vaccines

For the past decade, Claudia Petrovich has been a technician at Main Street Radiology in Queens and says she loves her job.

“The people I work with became like my second family,” she says. “I have a great manager.”

But Petrovich is currently looking for other work—specifically somewhere without a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. She is planning to quit by September 24th, which she says is the deadline the company set for employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Speaking with WNYC/Gothamist at a rally protesting mandatory vaccination in Manhattan’s Foley Square on Monday, Petrovich said she wished her company would “stand up” against such requirements.

As COVID-19 vaccine mandates have multiplied in recent weeks, many New Yorkers who were reluctant to get inoculated against the virus have caved and gotten their shots. Daily new vaccine recipients have numbered over 13,000 since mid-August—nearly double the low point recorded in mid-summer. But Petrovich is among the contingent so steadfast in their resistance that they’re willing to resign from their jobs or risk getting fired.

Until late July, vaccination policies were largely left up to individual employers. But now mandates and requirements affecting entire sectors are becoming more common, and some don’t provide the option of getting tested regularly instead. In New York, these include city and state policies covering public education, hospitals, nursing homes, entertainment and hospitality. Additional federal rules will apply to a large swath of the health care sector, and that could make it harder for the vaccine resistors to find other work in the same field.

Petrovich says she is applying to another medical imaging company, but it's unclear whether that company will ultimately be subject to new federal rules that will require health care facilities that receive payments from Medicare or Medicaid to have a fully vaccinated workforce. She declined to name the company because she doesn’t want it to affect the hiring process.

Meanwhile, legal challenges to these mandates are offering some vaccine resistors fuel to continue holding out. On Tuesday, a federal judge temporarily blocked New York's vaccine mandate for hospital workers and staff at long-term care facilities. The judge's order was in response to a lawsuit filed by health care workers over the lack of religious exemptions in the policy. A hearing will be held on September 28th to decide whether or not to lift the stay.

John Matland is a CT (computer tomography) technologist at Staten Island University Hospital who has become a vocal opponent of vaccine mandates for hospital workers, claiming they’re not backed by science because negative side effects have been reported and because of breakthrough infections, where vaccinated people still get and carry the virus.

A growing body of evidence shows that vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness and death from the coronavirus, including the delta variant. The vaccines that have been distributed in the U.S. have also undergone intensive monitoring beyond the clinical trials that were conducted and have been found to be overwhelmingly safe, with serious side effects being extremely rare. Vaccines generally do not have long-term side effects, and scientists say it’s unlikely the coronavirus vaccines will either.

Breakthrough cases are likewise rare in New York, with only 0.04% fully vaccinated residents experiencing such infections as of September 5th.

Matland wrote a letter to leaders at Northwell Health, which runs his hospital, urging them to reconsider vaccine requirements and was granted a meeting with the chief medical officer.

But Matland was suspended and then ultimately fired from his position over an incident that occurred during an August 18th vaccine protest. Northwell confirmed that account without offering details of the incident. According to Matland, he was let go for dropping a banner from the roof of the hospital—something he says he didn’t do.

Matland, 36, is appealing his termination but, even if he gets his job back, he is still unsure whether he will comply with the state requirement for hospital workers to get vaccinated by September 27th.

“I can’t tell you how I’ll feel on the eve of losing my job,” he said. “For 15 years, it’s been my home.”

Biden’s proposed federal rules for health care workers could mean he would face the same conundrum even if he moved out of state.

Ann, a mother of four who was also at the Foley Square protest, said she and her husband won’t get vaccinated for religious reasons, even if it means sacrificing some of their household income. She is a sign language interpreter with part-time work at CUNY and Northwell Health—and declined to give her last name for fear of professional repercussions.

“Our beliefs don't change just because the Department of Health says that they do,” said Ann, a Christian who says she refuses to get a coronavirus vaccine because they were produced or tested using fetal cell lines. These are cells replicated in a lab that can be traced back to fetuses aborted decades ago.

No major religion opposes the COVID-19 vaccines, but hospital workers fighting for faith-based exemptions might be able to obtain one by proving what are known as “sincere beliefs.” That loophole will be decided in the hearing on September 28th.

“Even if the state were to lose the federal case, the vaccine mandate as a whole goes forward, and most health care workers need to be getting their shots," Alicia Ouellette, dean and president of Albany Law School, told WNYC’s Morning Edition on Wednesday.

Thanks to ongoing legal battles, Ann says she’s “cautiously optimistic” that she won’t lose work over her beliefs.

Ann says CUNY is allowing her to get weekly coronavirus tests if she remains unvaccinated. But Northwell is not and has denied her applications for a religious exemption. She says she has previously been granted religious exemptions allowing her to avoid getting the flu shot and other vaccines.

Others who have yet to comply with vaccine mandates say they are holding out until the last possible moment—but will likely give in to avoid unemployment. That’s the case for Amanda, who teaches second grade in Bay Ridge and declined to provide her last name for fear of retaliation. For now, she says, she’s waiting to see what happens with legal challenges to the city’s policy around education staff. “I really am hoping they’re going to change their mind.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a policy requiring all Department of Education employees to get vaccinated by September 27th or be taken off payroll. But an arbitrator said last week that the city must allow medical and religious exemptions and provide those unvaccinated teachers with non-classroom assignments. This week, a New York Supreme Court judge put vaccine mandates for city workers on hold temporarily in response to a legal challenge from a group of labor unions.

Some observers worry that religious and medical exemptions will be abused by those who don’t really need them. An unvaccinated 25-year-old bartender who works at a restaurant in Midtown said he got a text from his boss asking about his vaccination status on Sunday evening, the night before the city was due to start enforcing its mandate for restaurant patrons, gym goers and attendees at entertainment venues, as well as employees of those establishments. He had heard from friends about a doctor who will give out notes for bogus medical exemptions and said he planned to try that route to avoid actually taking the shots.

Asked what the medical note would say, he said at the protest, “I have no idea, but whatever it is, I’m totally for it. I just don’t feel comfortable taking this vaccine.”

If that doesn’t work, he said he would look for a new gig. “I would try to find an establishment that’s on par with how I’m feeling.”