Coronavirus (Covid-19) and the vaccine: N.Y. restaurant fires waitress who wouldn’t get the vaccine

“After nearly a year of the pandemic decimating New York City’s restaurant industry, forcing thousands of businesses to close permanently and costing tens of thousands of people their jobs, this month brought a glimmer of optimism,” Matthew Haag writes over at The New York Times. “Limited indoor dining has started again and restaurant workers, including servers, cooks and those who make deliveries, have joined the growing list of New York State residents eligible to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. But at one Brooklyn restaurant, the changes have touched off a clash between the owner and a waitress who was fired on Monday after, she said, she resisted getting vaccinated out of concern that doing so could hurt her chances of becoming pregnant. Over the weekend, the restaurant, the Red Hook Tavern, required that its employees get vaccinated and then terminated the waitress, Bonnie Jacobson, when she asked for time to study the vaccine’s possible effects on fertility.  ‘I totally support the vaccine,’ Ms. Jacobson, 34, said in an interview on Wednesday. She added: ‘If it wasn’t for this one thing, I would probably get it.’ The restaurant’s owner would not comment on Ms. Jacobson’s case specifically, but he said the business’s policies had been revised to make it clearer to employees how they could seek an exemption from getting vaccinated.” Matthew Haag, “N.Y. Restaurant Fires Waitress Who Wouldn’t Get Covid-19 Vaccine,” The New York Times.