As most hospitals in NC require COVID-19 vaccines for workers, GOP lawmakers protest
Nearly every Republican in the N.C. House of Representatives has signed a letter demanding that hospital leaders around the state reconsider their decision to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for their workers.
Over the past few weeks, most of the state’s biggest hospitals have announced that their workers will have until September to either get vaccinated or provide a valid excuse why they can’t, such as a religious exemption, or else risk losing their jobs. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration has also made the same rules for workers at government-run health care facilities, The News & Observer reported.
In a letter to state health care CEOs sent Thursday, GOP lawmakers said they have since heard from people in their districts who work at hospitals and other health care facilities. They don’t want to get vaccinated and now feel “blindsided” by the vaccine mandates, the letter said.
“These men and women were rightly hailed as healthcare heroes while serving on the frontlines against COVID-19,” the lawmakers wrote. “It is simply unfair to force them to choose between their job and taking a vaccine that is only authorized for ‘emergency use only.’”
Medical experts around the nation and world, however, support the vaccines by large margins. And local hospital leaders say they owe it to their patients — and the communities they serve — to help stop the coronavirus pandemic.
“WakeMed has strong confidence in the science, safety and efficacy of the vaccines, and the available data continues to reinforce these beliefs,” Kristin Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Raleigh hospital, told The Associated Press after it announced a vaccine mandate last month.
On Thursday when the letter went out, North Carolina reported 4,331 new cases of Coronavirus — the highest daily number since February, The N&O reported. On Friday the numbers were even higher, with 4,506 new cases.
The political debate over vaccines
While Thursday’s letter was signed by 55 of the 69 Republicans in the House, the few names not on the list include some notable leaders in the party.
House Speaker Tim Moore, who appeared this spring in a bipartisan, state-sponsored PSA urging people to get vaccinated, did not sign the letter. The only medical doctor in the North Carolina General Assembly, Rep. Kristin Baker of Cabarrus County, also didn’t sign it.
Nor did Rep. Donny Lambeth, a retired health care executive from Forsyth County. He’s the former president of Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem — one of the hospitals now requiring employees to get vaccinated.
However, the letter wasn’t avoided by every Republican with a medical background. Those who did sign it include Rep. Donna White, a Johnston County nurse, and Rep. Wayne Sasser, a Stanly County pharmacist.
The day before the GOP sent their letter asking hospitals not to require vaccines for employees, Cooper held a press conference about COVID-19 and the rising spread of the new Delta variant. He said that he would rather get people vaccinated than bring back mask mandates or business closures.
He urged businesses to push their workers to get vaccinated, and he highlighted the state’s efforts at financial incentives — like $1 million vaccine lottery drawings for a few lucky winners, plus $100 for everyone who gets vaccinated in August.
“We got to pull out all the stops to get this done,” Cooper said. “Whatever brings people in to get their vaccinations, we want to do.”
As of Thursday, state data shows 62% of adults in North Carolina had gotten at least their first shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 58% of the state’s adult population was fully vaccinated.
Medical experts believe at least 80% of the population needs to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity, CNBC reported last weekend, adding that so far only four states have hit that mark.
Which hospitals require vaccines for workers?
The Associated Press reported in July that most or all of the facilities run by UNC Health, Duke University Health, Atrium, Novant, Cone Health and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center would be requiring vaccines by September.
That covers most of the hospitals and many clinics in the Triangle, Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Wilmington.
Some other hospitals also later joined in and announced they too would require vaccines — including WakeMed in Raleigh, Cape Fear Valley Health in Fayetteville, and Greenville-based Vidant Health, which is the main provider throughout most of eastern North Carolina.
It now appears one of the few major health care systems in the state not to mandate vaccinations is Asheville-based Mission Health, which operates in many western North Carolina counties.
Vaccination rates in much of western North Carolina are lagging behind the state as a whole, and the Asheville Citizen-Times reported that hospital leaders fear workers will quit rather than getting vaccinated, putting extra stress on already understaffed facilities.
Only 56% of Mission’s staff was vaccinated against COVID-19 as of late July, according to the Citizen-Times. Meanwhile, vaccination rates of the staff at Triangle hospitals like UNC and Duke facilities are above 70%, ABC-11 has reported.
Opposition to vaccine mandates
In recent days, small crowds of people against the COVID-19 vaccine — including some nurses and other health care workers — have protested in downtown Raleigh, in Durham outside Duke University’s hospital, and in other places around the state.
“I will die before I comply with tyranny,” read one woman’s sign at an anti-vaccine protest outside the governor’s mansion Wednesday. Others held signs equating vaccine mandates to “medical rape,” The N&O reported.
In their letter Thursday, the GOP lawmakers said they do believe that vaccines are important, but that private companies including hospitals should not make their workers get them.
“From our conversations with constituents who work at these facilities, we feel this was a rushed and hasty decision that does not include feedback and consideration of the employees and staff,” the lawmakers’ letter to hospital leaders says.
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it at link.chtbl.com/underthedomenc or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published August 6, 2021 at 2:30 PM with the headline "As most hospitals in NC require COVID-19 vaccines for workers, GOP lawmakers protest."
