Cobb Reporter

Anti-vaccine protesters recently gathered at Wellstar Corporate offices in Marietta. 

“Considering it was a gift shop located in one of their locations that I contracted COVID-19 I am happy that they are making sure that their employees are getting vaccinated,’’ Dr. Marjorie Roberts wrote via Twitter.

“Call it unconstitutional, call it whatever you want,” protester Dan Hester told WSB-TV. “You’ve got medicine out here that’s taking years, decades to be approved and then you see you on TV now they say, ‘Hey if you or your loved one has taken such a such a product, call this lawyer.’ Well, this has only taken months and it pushed through, yeah, that’s a little scary.”

The "Stop the Mandate" protest, deriving from a newly confirmed vaccine mandate for all Wellstar medical workers, began at 11 a.m. Aug. 18 and drew 150 people. It began in an attempt to eliminate the requirement, scheduled to become effective on Oct. 1, placing unvaccinated workers at risk of losing their jobs, according to WSB-TV. 

“You know, I think we see kind of the worst of the worst, but I think we also kind of all have our own opinions of that stuff,” Kaylee Sinkoe, a travel nurse who works at Piedmont Hospital and has chosen to remain unvaccinated, recently told WSB-TV.

According to data released by WSB-TV, vaccination rates for the six facilities operating Northeast Georgia Health Systems currently stand between 42% to 61%. 

The mandates sparked a debate about whether medical workers’ vaccine statuses should be revealed, or whether public access to the information would be considered a violation of privacy.

There is support for the mandate.

“Considering it was a gift shop located in one of their locations that I contracted COVID-19 I am happy that they are making sure that their employees are getting vaccinated,’’ Dr. Marjorie Roberts, founder/CEO of The Road To Here Consulting, wrote via Twitter.