Vaccine protesters in Georgia have disrupted several mobile vaccination actions against COVID-19 and caused one to be completely shut down, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia Public Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey’s office told the newspaper Monday that vaccination testing public health personnel “have been harassed, shouted at, threatened and denigrated by some of the same members of the public who tried help”. At a news conference Monday, Toomey said they had also received hostile and harassing emails.
“This is wrong. This is absolutely wrong,” Toomey said, according to the Macon Telegraph. “These people are giving their lives to help others. We should thank them for trying to get to our state vaccines to save lives.”
The closing mobile vaccination event was held in northern Georgia, where a group of protesters showed up to harass public health professionals, according to the Journal-Constitution.
Nancy Nydam, a spokeswoman for Toomey, told the newspaper that “apart from feeling threatened, the staff realized that no one would want to come to that place to get vaccinated in these circumstances, so they packed up and they went “.
Toomey said the harassment “comes with the territory to someone who is in my position,” but that “it should not happen to nurses working to try to keep that state safe,” according to the Journal-Constitution.
Clashes in Georgia are the latest in a series of incidents in which anti-vaccine and anti-mask protesters have publicly harassed and denounced health workers.
A group of parents in Tennessee earlier this month surrounded health professionals outside of a school board meeting after they advocated a mask mandate at local schools. And anti-mask protesters last week disrupted the back-to-school event for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D), who eventually returned it to his vehicle.
Reports also come as Georgia faces an increase in COVID-19, with a 35% increase in cases reported over the past 14 days, according to the New York Times.
Governor Brian Kemp (R) issued an order last week deploying more than 100 national guards to hospitals across the state to support staff amid rising cases.