Adams ends vax mandate for city workers
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Mayor Eric Adams ended the vaccine mandate for city workers on Monday, Feb. 6, which was put in place by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021. Photo via the Mayor’s Office/Flickr
By Ryan Schwach
Almost three years removed from the onset of the COVID pandemic, Mayor Eric Adams pulled back the vaccination requirement for city workers on Monday, repealing a measure put in place by his mayoral predecessor in the fall of 2021.
“City workers stepped up tremendously throughout the pandemic,” Adams said in a press release on Tuesday. “From our health care frontline workers and first responders who saved lives, to the city employees who kept our streets clean, our schools open, and our streets safe, we owe city workers a debt of gratitude for their service during New York City’s darkest days.”
The news of the mandate’s conclusion comes with the mayor’s announcement that 96 percent of the municipal workers the rule applied to have gotten vaccinated against COVID, as have 80 percent of New Yorkers.
“This is the right moment for this decision,” Adams said. “I continue to urge every New Yorker to get vaccinated, get boosted and take the necessary steps to protect themselves and those around them from COVID-19.”
The mandate, which began in 2021 and applied to around 160,000 city workers at the time, led to some city workers losing their jobs for refusing to get vaccinated. It also drew controversy from affected unions as well as right wing detractors, who saw it as detrimental to the city’s workforce.
Now this week, the same opponents are applauding the mayor’s choice to repeal the mandate.
“Today’s announcement to suspend mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements for all city workers proves that we’ve been correct all along,” said Queens City Councilmember Joann Ariola. “This is a tremendous step forward for our city, and will undoubtedly bring about benefits all across the board… What we are seeing now is proof that we should never stop fighting for what we know is right, and we should never give up on the spirit of New York.”
Ariola also called on the reinstatement of workers who lost their jobs due to the mandate.
The recently formed Common Sense Caucus, which includes the City Council’s Republican members and several conservative Democrats, including Queens City Councilmember Robert Holden, also celebrated the announcement but urged the city to begin to rehire the workers who were fired for refusing to comply with the rule.
“This is an excellent step in the right direction, but more needs to be done: let’s rehire all those who lost their jobs to the De Blasio-era mandates and bring the city back to normalcy,” Holden said in a tweet.
The mayor said that the approximately 1,780 employees who were fired for not getting vaccinated will have to apply for positions with their former agencies, and will not be automatically reinstated.
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, also of Queens, defended the mandate and impressed upon New Yorkers the need to stay safe and get fully vaccinated.
“We must be clear that vaccines are safe, effective, and save lives,” the speaker said in a statement.
“Since November 2021, the vaccine mandate has made it possible for us to protect ourselves and others from severe illness and helped curb the spread of COVID-19,” she added. “While 80 percent of New York City residents received their primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine, only 14 percent have received a bivalent dose, which shows us that we have more work to do as a city to increase awareness and access to updated vaccine shots,” she said.
The decision to repeal the city worker mandate comes several months after the mayor ended the mandate for private sector workers back in September.
The vaccine will officially become optional for all city workers starting on Friday, and will also pertain to visitors in Department of Education buildings.
Around 9 percent of all reported COVID tests have come back positive in the past seven days on average, according to the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Over the past week, the city has seen around 1,470 COVID cases, 76 COVID-related hospitalizations and 10 COVID-related deaths per day.
