Meg Britton-Mehlisch reports for The Berkshire Eagle that more than 3,000 staff members of the Berkshire Health System last week were notified by BHS management that the new COVID bivalent booster was being added to the system’s previous coronavirus vaccine mandate. That memo, leaked to the media, told all, “employees, caregivers, contractors, volunteers, and students working and learning” within the system that they had until December 15 to receive the booster and report their vaccination status to the health system. “It is now clear that adding the most recent bivalent booster will provide better protection against newer strains of the COVID-19 virus,” the statement to employees reads. The memo advised that while employees can apply for medical or religious exemptions, anyone without an exemption or booster shot by the deadline “will not be cleared to work and will therefore be suspended from employment without pay.” Employees may be fired if they do not receive the booster. Hundreds of employees and community members say they are against a new addition to the Berkshire Health Systems’ medical mandates for staff. Hundreds signed a letter to the hospital system over the weekend opposing the new vaccine requirements, calling the expanded vaccination mandate “nothing more than bullying by an employer for profit.” One Berkshire Medical Center nurse, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, said that she is actively looking for other places to work because of the mandate. “I’m willing to leave this place of employment because of the way they’ve treated us and the way they say ‘get this booster or get terminated,’” she said. The nurse said she has her doubts about the boosters’ effectiveness. She and many of the co-signers to the letter say they’re asking BHS to grant them the same autonomy over their health care decisions they grant their own patients. A spokesperson for the health system said the vaccine requirements as a condition of employment are nothing new. The coronavirus vaccination regimen joins BHS’s requirement that all staff also receive the flu, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella and Tdap vaccines. Scientific evidence shows that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective. Read the full story in The Berkshire Eagle.