NYC teachers rally against protest vaccine mandate

A group of New York City teachers and school union employees gared outside mayor's office Wednesday to protest a vaccine mandate anunced by city health and education deparments this week.

About 148,000 school employees and contractors who work in schools will have to get ir first dose by Sept. 27, or risk losing ir jobs.

"Am I prepared to lose it all? And answer is yes," said Rachel Maniscalco, who says she would accept being fired from her job as a teacher over getting vaccine.

"This is about medical freedom, this is about totalitarianism," she said.

"I would prefer to die a free man," said Carlos Oliveri, a science teacher who is refusing to get vaccine, although he vocated for his mor to get it.

He says he feels like people who choose t to get vaccine are being discriminated against.

"It becomes this never ending battle of which value is better than or, and right w we're at a moral dilemma" he said.

At least 63% of all school employees alrey have been vaccinated.

That figure doesn't include those who may have gotten ir shots outside city.

new requirement came as federal regulators gave full approval to Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, one of three vaccines available in U.S.

All alrey have authorization for emergency use, but officials hope full approval will increase public confidence in vaccines.

School starts Sept. 13 for city's roughly 1 million public school students.

New York and some or cities and states have been fighting virus' highly contagious delta variant by ratcheting up pressure to get more people iculated.

New York City last week began requiring proof of vaccination to enter restaurant dining rooms, gyms and many or public places, a first-in--nation policy that a few or cities have copied since it was anunced.

Meanwhile, New York state anunced last week that hospital and nursing home workers would have to get iculated.

Vaccine mandates for teachers are fairly rare so far in U.S., though Washington state, for one, says teachers must be iculated or face dismissal.

Vaccinate-or-test requirements are somewhat more common, existing in places including Los Angeles and Chicago, which are two biggest U.S. school districts after New York.