A Hospital Finds an Unlikely Group Opposing Vaccination: Its Workers

When a Staten Island hospital implemented a vaccine or testing mandate, some of its staff staged angry protests.

Their movement started discreetly, just a handful of people communicating on encrypted apps like WhatsApp and Signal. But in just days it had ballooned tenfold. And within two weeks, it had turned into a full-blown public protest, with people waving picket signs to denounce efforts to push them to receive coronavirus vaccines. But these were not just any vaccine resisters. They were nurses, medical technicians, infection control officers and other staff who work at a hospital in Staten Island, which has the highest rate of Covid-19 infection of any borough in New York City. Outside Staten Island University Hospital this week, as passing cars and fire trucks honked supportively, employees chanted, “I am not a lab rat!”