Dozens of people gathered in front of CarolinaEast Medical Center Tuesday to protest the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.

The federal mandate calls for all healthcare workers to be vaccinated by January 2022.

Some healthcare workers are against the mandatory shot.

Protester Rick Hopkins said he stands for the workers who are being affected by the vaccine mandate because he has family and friends who could lose their jobs if they choose not to be vaccinated.

"It's tyranny. It's medical tyranny,” he said, “It's not America. It's not the freedoms that we're supposed to have. You should have freedom of choice of what goes into your body. They're forcing them to take an injection either on religious grounds or just for whatever personal reasons. They do not want to have that injection into their body."

There are roughly 2700 employees at Carolina East.