WLUC meteorologist Karl Bohnak is out at the Marquette, Mich. NBC affiliate after he refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
Station owner Gray Television mandated that all employees must be vaccinated by Oct. 1.
“Many of you have taken one of these injections, and that is absolutely your right,” Bohnak said on Facebook. “It is also my right to choose the medical options I feel are right for me. I have authority over my body.”
Bohnak’s post also includes his views about liberty and his personal opinions about the disease, which has killed more than 660,000 Americans. While some of the 2,700 commenters supported him in his stand against vaccines, one commenter warned viewers not to listen to a meteorologist about medical issues.
Bohnak, who began working at WLUC in 1988, said he’d get the vaccine if the risk of dying from Covid-19 was significant. But because he considers himself a healthy adult not suffering from comorbidities, he said his chance of surviving the disease is “well over 99 percent.”
“I will take the chance and go without a shot. I choose not to risk serious side effects,” he said.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, the 68-year-old Bohnak falls into the high-risk category for Covid-19 hospitalizations and death. The CDC says people between the age of 65 and 74 are five times more likely to be hospitalized and 90 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those 18-29.
Bohnak is not the only broadcast journalist who has been fired for refusing a Covid-19 vaccination. Just yesterday, Georgia sports anchor Dave Platta, whose station WTVM is also owned by Gray Television, was fired for the same reason.