New York ends religious exemption for COVID vaccine mandate: 450,000 healthcare workers affected

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New York ends religious exemption for COVID vaccine mandate: 450,000 healthcare workers affected

Healthcare employees in the state must take the experimental injection or face termination regardless of religious objections.

Mon Aug 30, 2021
ALBANY, New York (LifeSiteNews) — Healthcare workers in the state of New York ordered to get the COVID-19 jab will not have the option of a religious exemption, thanks to emergency authorization passed late last week.

In Thursday’s decision, a New York State Department of Health board unanimously approved a COVID-19 mandate for all New York healthcare personnel. 

In passing the measure the board also scrubbed the option for a religious exemption, effectively forcing the more than 450,000 healthcare workers in the state to get the jab whether they have religious objections to the abortion-tainted injection or not.

Under the new rules, no more religious exemptions will be granted, and previously obtained religious exemptions will be invalidated. 

The new emergency mandate took effect immediately, and will be subject to review after 90 days.

As noted by Becker’s Hospital Review, the mandate will apply to those working in hospitals, nursing homes, diagnostic and treatment centers, adult care facilities, certified home health agencies, hospices, long-term home health care programs, AIDS home care programs, licensed home care service agencies, and limited licensed home care service agencies.

Personnel subject to the new rules include all employees, members of the medical and nursing staff, contract staff, students, and volunteers, “who engage in activities such that if they were infected with COVID-19, they could potentially expose other covered personnel, patients or residents to the disease,” the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

Employees working in hospitals and nursing homes must get the first dose of their shot by September 27, while employees of other facilities named in the statement must get their first dose by October 7.

Those who refuse to take the injection may be fired.

Many people have strong reasons for opposing the experimental shot, particularly those whose religious beliefs lead them to oppose the murder of unborn babies through abortion.

Such moral positions have led many to object to the COVID-19 “vaccines,” since all of the coronavirus injections currently on the market have close ties with abortion. 

Moderna and Pfizer used cell lines derived from aborted babies for testing, while J&J’s shot was directly produced in the human fetal cell line PER.C6, which was derived from retinal tissue taken from an 18-week-old baby boy who was aborted in the Netherlands in 1985 and  reduced to a fetal cell line in 1995. 

But the Department of Health has made no allowances for religious objection to the shots.

Department of Health (DOH) attorney Vanessa Murphy said no facilities in the state will be permitted to offer religious exemptions moving forward.

“We’re not constitutionally required to provide a religious exemption,” Murphy explained. “You see that with the Measles and the Mumps requirement for health care workers.”

It is unclear how the mandate will be enforced, but it appears the matter will be left up to individual facilities to decide.

Administrators of hospitals and other institutions subject to the order will be granted authority to determine how to require employees to abide by the mandate.

“I think in terms of compliance and enforcement, it’s at the facility level,” Murphy said. “We’ve built in provisions to require covered entities upon request to report information to us. I don’t know if we’ve worked out the details of how we would audit or ensure compliance.”

Alternatives to vaccination, like masking and bi-weekly testing, were not discussed during the Thursday meeting. 

Failure to comply with the mandate may result in termination of employment.

As reported by the New York Post, the rules passed by the DOH states that “[c]overed entities may terminate personnel who are not fully vaccinated and do not have a valid medical exemption and are unable to otherwise ensure individuals are not engaged in patient/resident care or expose other covered personnel.”

The strict mandate requiring healthcare workers to get the experimental drug has led some to fear that employees may quit their jobs rather than submit to the injection.

During the public comment segment of the Thursday meeting, Al Cardillo, CEO of the Home Care Association of New York State, said he was worried the mandate would lead to a depletion of an already strained workforce. 

“We really encourage you to consider the shortage, in the emergency situation that we have,” Cardillo said, asking the board to give healthcare workers more time than allotted by the mandate’s deadline.

Journalist, conservative author, and former New York Times writer Alex Berenson, who has written significantly on COVID-19 restrictions and mandates over the past 18 months, reported there is a significant chance of a major shortage of nurses starting October 1 due to the implementation of vaccine mandates. 

The existing shortage of skilled healthcare workers may be a point of leverage for those opposed to taking the experimental drug.

Berenson, who has spoken to many in the healthcare industry who have shared their worries about the experimental injections, said many are choosing to walk away from their jobs rather than take the shot.

“They’re quitting because they don’t want to be vaccinated,” Berenson said in an August 27 tweet.

Earlier this month Berenson shared an email from a source who told him that “nurses are the tip of the spear in the resistance to vaccine mandates.” 

In another email, an Orange County, California nurse told Berenson she and her colleagues have been ordered by the state government to get the shot by the end of September, but “[t]here are currently 70 NICU nurses refusing vaccination.”

According to the anonymous California nurse, “That unit will be in bad shape if they lose 70 staff members. Many nurses in other units are also refusing.” 

In response to Berenson’s many tweets slamming vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and Big Tech censorship, Twitter permanently suspended Berenson on Saturday.

Thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of adverse reactions to the experimental coronavirus inoculations have been reported to the American government’s Vaccine Adverse Reporting System (VAERS).