Some CA Health Care Workers Protest Vaccine Mandates

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — Last week, California announced that all health care workers would have to get inoculated by Sept. 30. The order prompted at least three protests in front of hospitals in California on Monday.

The order, which came down on Thursday, is one of the strictest moves seen in the nation to drive up vaccination rates in the state as the delta coronavirus variant fuels a summer spike in cases.

"It’s our body, our choice," a protestor outside Children’s Hospital Orange County and Providence St. Josephs Hospital told KTLA on Monday.

Video from KTLA showed dozens of picketers gathered outside of the Orange hospital on Monday morning.

"I’ve risked my life for people that have had COVID over the last 18 months," said a man who told KTLA he has worked in an Orange County emergency room for 12 years. “I’ve put up a fight for them and I don’t have any desire to force anything on anybody else,” he said.

Other adjacent protests were planned in San Diego and Riverside on Monday, according to multiple reports.

Read more from KTLA: 'Our body, our choice': Health care workers rally against California's vaccine mandate

Workers must be vaccinated if they work in health care settings including hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities, psychiatric hospitals, adult day cares, ambulatory surgery centers, substance abuse treatment centers, clinics, doctor's offices, dialysis centers, hospice facilities and mental health facilities, according to the order.

READ MORE: CA To Require Vaccines For All Health Care Workers

Few exemptions were offered in the details of the new order other than those relating to religious beliefs or specific medical conditions. Anyone seeking a medical exemption must also give their employer a written statement signed by a doctor, nurse or another medical professional, the state said last week.

The state's positivity rate had been inching up steadily each week, illustrating a rate of spread that hasn't been seen in months. On Monday, it was 6.3 percent, down from 6.7 percent last week.

Case rates became 470 percent higher among those unvaccinated than in those who are unvaccinated, the state reported Monday. For the week of July 31, the average case rate among unvaccinated Californians was 33 per 100,000 per day and the average case rate among vaccinated Californians was significantly lower at 7 per 100,000 per day, the state said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the latest surge a "pandemic of the unvaccinated," and the state has placed blame on health care workers unwilling to get the jab.

"Increasing numbers of health care workers are among the new positive cases, despite vaccinations being prioritized for this group when vaccines initially became available," the order said.