68-Year-Old Michigan Meteorologist Leaves Upper Peninsula TV Job Over Jab
For more than 33 years Karl Bohnak has been a fixture on TV6 & FOX UP in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. As of last week, he had decided that leaving his place of employment was more important to him than getting a vaccine.
The 68-year-old Bohnak will be able to start cashing those social security checks if he so chooses, as he's decided that ending his time at WLUC was more important than getting vaccinated per his company's Covid policy.
On Wednesday the Negaunee weatherman announced as part of a nearly 600-word facebook post, that he is leaving due to his employers Covid mitigation policies:
I am leaving TV6 because the station's corporate owner, Gray Television, has mandated vaccination against COVID-19 for anyone entering a property owned by the company. Since I chose not to take one of the shots, I was fired.
Many of you have taken one of these injections, and that is absolutely your right. It is also my right to choose the medical options I feel are right for me. I have authority over my body.
Since full approval was granted to the Pfizer Covid vaccine, more businesses have instituted similar policies to help maintain safe and healthy workplaces. In a statement, Atlanta based Gray Television, says that all employees and contractors must meet the new requirements:
Effective Sept. 1, 2021, all new full-time and part-time hires must be ‘fully vaccinated’ against the coronavirus (as defined by the CDC). This full vaccination policy will extend to all of our managers effective Sept. 15, 2021, and to all other employees, as well as all outside contractors, tenants and guests who enter our workspaces, on Oct. 1, 2021. We will make accommodations for employees with medical or religious needs.
A support group for Bohnak has popped up on facebook, but moderator Layne Starrine has noted the group is getting fact-checked by Facebook, so users should 'blur out' words like Covid & vaccine:
We’re getting warnings from Facebook that we have to many post being fact checked that could result in shutdown down this page let’s keep the “Fake Peckers” off our backs and keep this page going if something has already been flagged please try not to post it or edit it so keep word like Covid-19 and vaccine are blurred out.
It's not uncommon for media companies to require vaccinations, in fact even right-leaning Fox News was 'outed' for their vaccine disclosure requirements last month.
As of September 20, 2021, 212 million people, or about 63.9% of the U.S. population, have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Of those, 181.7 million, or about 54.7% of the population, are fully vaccinated.