Dozens show up at SBU Hospital to protest new vaccine mandate
Over 100 Long Islanders gathered at Stony Brook University Hospital and alongside Nicolls Road Wednesday, Aug. 25, to protest against the updated COVID-19 vaccine mandate recently put in place for hospital and long-term care workers.
The first dose will be required by Sept. 27 with limited exceptions for those with religious or medical exemptions. According to data from New York State, new daily positives are up more than 1000% over the last six weeks.
About 80% of the positive cases are linked to the new Delta variant. However, protesters felt this new mandate is unfair, and that medical workers should be allowed to have a choice as to whether or not they want to be vaccinated.
“It’s not in the Constitution that the government can mandate anything medical,” said Barbara Luvin, a Freeport resident. “This mandate does equal communism, because you shouldn’t be forced to do anything. It’s a matter of freedom for your own body.”
Many medical care workers are being terminated from their jobs due to not being compliant with the vaccine mandate.
Commack medical care worker Diane Eder expressed her frustrations, saying she will be terminated from her work on Sept. 24 due to her opposition to receiving the vaccine.
“Let me make it clear that I am not against vaccines,” Eder said. “I’ve been in the medical field for 40 years, but I’m going to be terminated because I won’t get vaccinated. We don’t know what the future holds for people who get the vaccine, and I know that I do not want it. All I’m asking for is to wait another year or two.”
Signs including “Last Year’s Heroes, This Year’s Unemployed” and “Nurses For Medical Freedom — We Have The Right to Choose” were held high as protesters with megaphones shouted to the crowd from the second floor of the parking garage.
It wasn’t only medical care workers who came to the protest, but also friends, families and other local residents who disagreed strongly with the new mandate.
“It should be people’s personal decision, and it shouldn’t be mandated by the government — that’s the bottom line,” said Kimberly Riegel, a Miller Place resident. “If people want to get it, that’s fine, but if I don’t want to get it. I shouldn’t have to, and I don’t think that’s an argument that we should have to dispute.”
A statement from Stony Brook Medicine said, “Stony Brook Medicine follows all state and DOH guidelines regarding immunization against COVID-19. COVID-19 vaccines have proven highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death from COVID-19. They are important tools to keep patients, patient-facing health care workers, and the wider community safe as we observe a rise in COVID cases in New York State, driven by the Delta variant.”
Article was updated Aug. 31 with a statement from Stony Brook Medicine.
