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Monday, February 17, 2025

NYC to impose vaccine mandate on private sector employers

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1169 days ago
20211206
In this image taken from video, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a virtual press conference, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, in New York. Multiple cases of the omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, health officials said Thursday, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota. (AP Photo)

In this image taken from video, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks during a virtual press conference, Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021, in New York. Multiple cases of the omicron coronavirus variant have been detected in New York, health officials said Thursday, including a man who attended an anime convention in Manhattan in late November and tested positive for the variant when he returned home to Minnesota. (AP Photo)

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City em­ploy­ers will have to man­date COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tions for their work­ers un­der new rules an­nounced Mon­day by May­or Bill de Bla­sio.

The vac­cine man­date for pri­vate busi­ness­es will take ef­fect Dec. 27 and is aimed at pre­vent­ing a spike in COVID-19 in­fec­tions dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son and the cold­er months, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic may­or said on MSNBC’s “Morn­ing Joe.”

“We in New York City have de­cid­ed to use a pre­emp­tive strike to re­al­ly do some­thing bold to stop the fur­ther growth of COVID and the dan­gers it’s caus­ing to all of us,” de Bla­sio said. “All pri­vate-sec­tor em­ploy­ers in New York City will be cov­ered by this vac­cine man­date as of Dec. 27.”

Vac­ci­na­tions are al­ready re­quired for hos­pi­tal and nurs­ing home work­ers and city em­ploy­ees in­clud­ing teach­ers, po­lice of­fi­cers and fire­fight­ers. A vac­ci­na­tion man­date for em­ploy­ees of pri­vate and re­li­gious schools was an­nounced last week.

The city was mov­ing to im­pose the man­date on pri­vate sec­tor busi­ness­es even as fed­er­al courts have tem­porar­i­ly blocked an at­tempt by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden to do the same na­tion­al­ly for larg­er com­pa­nies.

De Bla­sio said he ex­pects the new man­date to sur­vive any le­gal chal­lenges. A spokesper­son for the may­or said the pri­vate sec­tor man­date will ap­ply to rough­ly 184,000 busi­ness­es.

Cur­rent New York City COVID-19 rules al­so in­clude at least one vac­cine dose for in­door restau­rant din­ing, en­ter­tain­ment venues and fit­ness cen­ters. Un­der new man­dates for in­door din­ing, en­ter­tain­ment and gyms, two shots will be re­quired for peo­ple over 12. One shot will be re­quired for chil­dren aged 5 to 11, who are not cov­ered by the cur­rent man­date, de Bla­sio said.

De Bla­sio, who will leave of­fice at the end of the month and has in­di­cat­ed he may seek the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for gov­er­nor of New York next year, has sought to por­tray him­self as a na­tion­al leader in the fight against COVID-19.

Re­pub­li­can Rep. Lee Zeldin of Long Is­land, who is seek­ing the GOP nom­i­na­tion for gov­er­nor, called the new­ly an­nounced vac­cine re­quire­ment a “job killing, small busi­ness-sup­press­ing man­date.”

“When you dan­ger­ous­ly com­bine a far-left, lame duck politi­cian, who is an­ti-busi­ness, one-di­men­sion­al, un­ac­count­able, not bright and has a per­pet­u­al ‘I al­ways know best’ at­ti­tude,’ you get Bill de Bla­sio, the Worst May­or in Amer­i­ca,” Zeldin said in a state­ment.

COVID-19HealthUnited States


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