COVID vaccine Mandate

Dear BMC,

   We, the employees of Berkshire Medical Center are asking that the 2022 covid booster vaccine mandate and all future covid vaccine mandates, be stopped. In 2021, for the primary vaccine series, many of us went against our values, some of us suffered terrible long term health consequences and many of us left the company due to the BMC’s failure to take medical and religious exemptions seriously.
We are nurses, doctors, CNAs, housekeepers, respiratory therapists and more. For the past three years, we have fearlessly put ourselves on the front lines, through illness, short staffing and watching travelers make 3x as much money as us to displace us from our positions and force us into units where we were uncomfortable. Our reward after all this is a forced injection, that many independent practitioners believe should be based on an individual's personal risk.    
Pfizer has recently announced publicly that the vaccine was never tested for decreased transmission and that it DOES NOT reduce transmission. The head of the CDC contracted covid only a month after her booster. Many of us were willing to sacrifice our bodies to help protect our patients, but if that is not what we are doing now, this most recent vaccine mandate is nothing more than bullying by an employer for profit. In a recent email, BMC announced that the pandemic was over and employees would no longer be paid for time when they are sick with covid. If the pandemic is over, and employees must use their own time for illness, then why are you forcing vaccines that do not reduce transmission?
The same way our country has come to rally around abortion rights, we are simply asking the same… “MY BODY, MY CHOICE”!