Their job got them vaccinated. They refused.

Itzia Jimenez, 33, gym cleaner

This summer, Mr. de Blasio introduced vaccination mandates for certain activities, including indoor meals and gyms. Itzia Jimenez, who refused to be vaccinated because she feared the vaccines were unsafe, lost her job as a gym cleaner.

Ms Jimenez said she had struggled to find cleaning jobs because she was not vaccinated. His family is now financially dependent on his daughter’s father, whose workplace required him to be vaccinated.

She plans to home teach her pre-teen daughter, she said, anticipating a possible future term for public school children. All 50 states already require certain vaccines, such as measles, mumps and rubella. This month, California announced its intention to require Covid-19 vaccines for students. Eric Adams, possibly the next mayor of New York, has indicated that he plans to do the same.

“But she loves being with her friends, it’s so hard for her,” Ms. Jimenez said of her daughter. “Am I doing the right thing, am I doing the right thing?” “

Douglas Kariman, 48, nurse

A nurse in a medical intensive care unit at Erie County Medical Center, Douglas Kariman has called for a religious exemption from compulsory vaccination. A Baptist Christian, he said his opposition to abortion was one of the factors in his refusal of vaccines, which, like aspirin, ibuprofen, and many other drugs, have been tested or developed using research on fetal cells collected decades ago.

In an Arkansas health care network, the Conway Regional Health System, so many employees have requested religious exemptions as the The system began asking them to sign a form stating that their faith also prevented them from using 30 common drugs, including Benadryl and Tums, which were developed from fetal cell research, according to reports.