The headlines out of Gov. Brian Kemp’s latest press conference focused on the thousands of Georgia National Guard troops he’s preparing to deploy to help hospitals fight the pandemic.
But it was Dr. Kathleen Toomey who stopped us in our tracks when she revealed that anti-vaxxer protesters had disrupted several vaccination drives -- and forced one to shut down.
We asked aides to Toomey, the state’s top health official, to elaborate. Her office promptly detailed how public health staff “have been harassed, yelled at, threatened and demeaned by some of the very members of the public they were trying to help.”
In one south Georgia county, the anti-vaxxers tracked down public health employees through social media and harangued them with messages of hostility and misinformation about vaccines.
And the event that was canceled was a north Georgia mobile vaccination event, where an organized group of people showed up to harass and name-call public health workers.
“Aside from feeling threatened themselves, staff realized no one would want to come to that location for a vaccination under those circumstances, so they packed up and left,” said Nancy Nydam, Toomey’s spokesman.
“It comes with the territory to someone in my position,” Toomey said of the threats. “But it shouldn’t be happening to those nurses who are working to try to keep this state safe.”
https://www.ajc.com/politics/politi...te-health-workers/KJBPDZ5NCBHSHPSBUI5IYMNR6U/
