Former WLOX anchor Meggan Gray has a new TV gig. She isn’t leaving South Mississippi.
The WLOX-TV anchor who lost her job at the station after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine didn’t have to look far for her next gig.
Meggan Gray will is joining the WXXV-TV news team, a competitor to WLOX, the company announced Thursday. She will appear as a co-anchor from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Monday to Friday and will also anchor the noon newscast.
Gray spent 18 years at WLOX, leaving as co-host of “Good Morning Mississippi.”
“I’m excited to have this opportunity to continue the career I love here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast,” Gray in the WXXV article.
Don Moore, general manager of WXXV, said he’s excited to welcome Gray to the staff.
“Having known her for many years, I feel confident her community involvement and commitment to excellence in broadcasting will be of great benefit to the station,” he said in the WXXV story.
Anchor left WLOX after COVID vaccine mandate
In an Oct. 1 Facebook post, Gray announced she had left WLOX rather than comply with a policy instituted by its parent company, Gray Television, “that all employees, managers, guests, outside contractors and tenants must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.”
Gray wrote that before the vaccination policy was announced, she had made “an informed and prayerful decision not to get the vaccine, mostly because I had already survived a case of COVID-19. (There are other, more powerful reasons that led to my personal decision.)“
“I know there will be people who disagree with me or do not understand my reasons,” she continued. “That is fully understood because that is a protected right they enjoy. Moreover, it is a personal decision for each American; but in my opinion, a forced decision to decide between a vaccination and the livelihood of an individual is a dangerous precedent.”
At the time, WLOX general manager Rick Williams told the Sun Herald he could not comment on a personnel matter.
He included a statement from Gray Television that said the vaccination policy was adopted to ensure a safe work environment. Limited exemptions were available for certain medical conditions and religious reasons.
“We unfortunately have had to terminate the employment of a very small portion of our workforce who declined to get vaccinated and/or who requested an exemption that could not be accommodated without imposing an undue hardship on the business or their coworkers,” the statement said.
Low COVID vaccination rates in MS
Gray’s post, which was shared nearly 600 times and attracted about 1,500 comments, most of them supportive, gave a high-profile face to the anti-mandate movement in south Mississippi.
The region has some of the lowest vaccination rates in a state that lags far behind national averages.
As of Tuesday, only 46% of all Mississippians had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, compared to 57% of all Americans. In Harrison County, only 40% of people are fully vaccinated. In Hancock County, the figure is just 31%.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Nearly 7 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, according to Bloomberg. Doctors and scientists agree the vaccines are safe and effective.
State health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said in August that the health department is not aware of a single death caused by the vaccine in Mississippi.
Instead, he said, “people have died because of bad information.”
During the recent Delta surge, 95% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Singing River hospitals were unvaccinated.
Companies like CVS, Delta and Google have mandated vaccines for most employees.
Protesting vaccine mandates on the Coast
On the Coast, vaccine mandates primarily affect federal contractors and employees, including the workforces at Ingalls Shipbuilding and John C. Stennis Space Center. Under Biden administration guidance, all employees must be vaccinated by Dec. 8, 2021.
The mandate has sparked protests at Ingalls and Stennis.
Some conservative lawmakers have urged employees to seek religious exemptions to the vaccination mandate.
On Facebook, Gray said she had sought a religious exemption but it was denied.
This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 2:25 PM.
