Caregivers not vaccinated against Covid-19 are still suspended and salary-deprived in France, and a decision across the Atlantic has sparked many reactions from those who defend them these days. New York City would be forced to reinstate all employees deprived of work for not receiving injections in the arm, according to several comments read on social networks. Reality is not that simple.
What you may have read or heard
“The New York Supreme Court orders the reinstatement of all staff suspended for non-Covid vaccination!” With retroactive payment of the amount due! “The former number 2 of the National Front (now National Rally), Florian Philippot, in particular wrote on Twitter, frequented by antivax and conspiracy theorists. New York State Supreme Court Restores All Unvaccinated Employees Sacked, Orders Retropay [et] declares that the state has violated [leurs] rights, “added RN MEP Virginie Joron.
More precisely, the artist Beatrice Rosen, columnist of “Touche pas à mon Poste” on C8, wrote that “the judge in New York restores suspended caregivers”.
What a New York judge (really) decided
In the Oct. 24 ruling, a New York state judge orders a group of 16 unvaccinated health workers, fired for this reason, to be reinstated and paid retroactively. This judge of the New York Supreme Court, court of first instance, denounced an “arbitrary” decision and stressed that being vaccinated “does not prevent contracting and transmitting Covid”. “President Biden said the pandemic was over” and “New York State ended the state of emergency about a month ago,” he adds in his justifications.
Since the end of October 2021, exactly one year ago, all New York City employees must have received at least one dose of the Covid vaccine in order to continue working. Private sector employees in contact with the public were subject to the same rule a month later, but artists and athletes were exempted following a lively controversy. Finally, from 1 November, employees in the private sector will no longer be subject to the vaccination obligation. The judge also denounced “differential treatment”.
What actually changes
Local authorities have challenged this court decision. A spokesperson for the US city law office said in a statement that he was “strongly disagree because the vaccination mandate is firmly rooted in the law and is essential to the public health of New Yorkers,” reports the US press.
In concrete terms, this decision has no impact on all other municipal employees subject to the vaccination obligation. Indeed, in this case “it concerns only individual demonstrators,” the spokesman said.
“The city has always refused to respect the decisions, the orders of the courts, and they are appealing. Now we have to fight, “reacted Fox News attorney Christina Martinez, who has always fought against this type of mandatory vaccination.
And in France?
For more than a year, healthcare workers (in particular) in France have been obliged to get vaccinated against Covid-19 if they wish to continue working. The health ministry estimated last summer at “about 12,000”, inclusive nearly 1,000 doctors, nurses or pharmacists in hospitals or nursing homes, suspended the number of professionals. But this is actually unknown, especially since some caregivers have been able to change their lives and jobs in the meantime.
On 22 July the High Health Authority recommended maintaining the vaccination obligation “for personnel working in health and medical-social institutions”, for “ethical as well as public health” reasons. “Given the dynamic context of the epidemic, the uncertainties about the evolution of the epidemic in the coming months and the effectiveness of a comprehensive vaccination program in reducing the risk of infection and disease transmission, the data are unlikely to question” this measure, the HAS estimated. In the process, Health Minister François Braun announced that he would follow this recommendation. For the moment, no deadline has been announced.
