What you should know
- New York City police, firefighters and other municipal employees have hit the deadline to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
- They are likely to face dismissal on Friday without proof of vaccination.
- That deadline was announced less than two weeks ago, months after the city’s health commissioner issued an order requiring all city employees to receive their immunization records in order to work.
—
NEW YORK — New York City police, firefighters and other municipal employees have hit the deadline to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and are likely to face dismissal Friday without proof of vaccination.
That deadline was announced less than two weeks ago, months after the city’s health commissioner issued an order requiring all city employees to receive their immunization records in order to work. All city workers watching the outage were notified, according to memos obtained by our sister network News 4 New York.
About 95% of the city’s 370,000 municipal workers have received at least one dose, which means there are fewer than 3,000 unvaccinated employees and less than 1% are about to be laid off on Friday.
The layoff applies to two groups: new employees who have not provided proof of a second dose of vaccine, if needed to complete their series, and unvaccinated employees currently on unpaid leave who did not apply to continue receiving health benefits after of June.
New city employees hired after Aug. 2 required a full series of vaccinations as a condition of employment and were given 45 days to do so.
The other group is those who are on unpaid leave and did not keep their union-negotiated health benefits.
“We are not laying them off. People are giving up. The responsibility is clear. We said it,” Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday.
–
