Older, religious workers fired for refusing vaccine

AstraZeneca, in a plot to lower the average age of its workforce, engaged in discrimination when it fired workers who refused COVID-19 vaccines because of religious reasons, a federal lawsuit filed by seven former workers of the pharmaceutical company said.

The fired workers cited a 2021 presentation by an AstraZeneca director of sales in which he claimed the company’s average employee age was around 48 and indicated that was “too high.” The former workers, all over the age of 40, were among as many as 200 people fired the following year after claiming religious exemptions from vaccination.