What you should know
- As the deadline for city employees to get vaccinated approaches, Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed the possibility of a shortage of first responders.
- New York City announced last week that it was expanding its COVID-19 vaccination mandate to all public employees with no testing option.
- A shortage of first responders is a real possibility, especially considering that after promising legal action in response to the city’s most recent vaccine mandate, the NYPD’s largest union went ahead on Monday and sued New York City in court. State Supreme on Staten Island.
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NEW YORK – As the deadline for city employees to get vaccinated approaches, Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed the possibility of a shortage of first responders.
New York City announced last week that it was expanding its COVID-19 vaccination mandate to all public employees without trial option.
The timelines are different for the NYPD and FDNY compared to correctional officers, but the message is the same, according to the mayor’s office: Those who serve the community must take responsibility to protect the people within the community and themselves. .
According to the mayor, since the mandate was announced, there has been an increase in vaccinating city employees.
“We are seeing a movement, obviously because the numbers we have are up to yesterday, what I hope is an increase in activity, particularly on Friday, and then what we saw before. We had this pattern with health workers and our employees. schools, an increase in vaccinations just before the deadline, “de Blasio said during his daily press conference on Wednesday, adding:” And then some people who realize they are about to be on no-charge leave and then They go out and get vaccinated immediately and others who get vaccinated in the following days. “
A shortage of first responders is a real possibility, especially considering that after promising legal action in response to the city’s most recent vaccine mandate, NYPD’s largest union sued New York City in state Supreme Court in Staten Island on Monday. On Wednesday, the mayor acknowledged just that and addressed what it will mean for the city if there really is a shortage after the vaccine mandate is enacted on Friday.
The mayor said that while they have no substitutes on hand, a pool of workers available when there was talk of a teacher shortage, this time a different plan will most likely be put in place to address the shortage of first responders, if it ends up having one.
“It’s about overtime, it’s about changing assignments to a particular need. Our agencies went through a lot last year where they had a lot of members out of work due to COVID and they adjusted and did very well. “, said.
“They are organizations used to crises and disasters and they know how to keep things going,” the mayor continued.
When asked about the projected overtime costs that these schedule changes would mean for the city, de Blasio said: “I want to point out, we are not looking at this from a budget perspective, we are looking at this from how to keep people safe, how We end the era of COVID, how we turn the corner in the biggest crisis in our history. That is our focus. Obviously, I would like everyone to get vaccinated before the end of Friday. If they don’t, they go off payroll. I don’t want those savings, but create savings and if we have to put in more overtime to balance, obviously there will be resources to account for that. “
During her own press conference, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state stands ready to help the city if they run into a shortage of first responders.
“I will always extend my hand, friendship and support to New York City. This is a new era of collaboration and if you need our help to provide basic services to the constituents we represent each other, I will be there to help,” said the Governor.
De Blasio has said that those who serve the city also have a responsibility to protect the people and communities within it from all scourges, including COVID-19.
“The vaccine is what has allowed us to fight COVID and save tens of thousands of lives. And there are still many city employees who are not vaccinated,” de Blasio told CNN last week. “I want to protect them. I want to protect their families. I want to protect everyone they come into contact with within this city.”
“Law enforcement has been the hardest hit by COVID. In this nation, in the past two years, COVID has killed 460 law enforcement officers. We have to protect them,” the Democrat added. “This vaccine mandate allows us to do that.”
Starting last week, city employees will receive $ 500 in their paychecks if they receive their first injection at a city-run vaccination site, according to the mayor’s office.
The new rules affect more than 160,000 workers (including police, firefighters, and correctional officers). The president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association said he told members that “if they choose not to get vaccinated, they must still report for duty.” Nearly 45% of FDNY firefighters are not vaccinated, union president Andrew Ansbro said last week, adding that firefighters want testing to continue. It is not clear what the current percentage of the unvaccinated in the FDNY is as of Wednesday.
“There is no greater privilege than serving the people of New York City, and that privilege comes with the responsibility to keep you and your community safe,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in making the announcement Wednesday.
“We have led the way against COVID-19, from fighting for the right to vaccinate frontline workers, to providing nation-leading incentives to create the Key to NYC mandate,” the Democrat continued. “As we continue our recovery for all of us, city workers have been a daily inspiration. Now is the time for them to show their city the way out of this pandemic once and for all.”
De Blasio said the city will immediately begin impact negotiations with the affected unions.
Under an executive order signed by the mayor last month, New York police officers must be vaccinated or show proof of a negative COVID-19 test each week, but the new order that is expected to become official later Wednesday means Some 20,000 unvaccinated officers must receive at least one dose by Oct. 29 or receive an unpaid leave of absence, authorities said. The deadline is 5pm that day.
The NYPD has about 34,500 uniformed personnel and about 17,700 people in non-uniformed support positions. In an interview with PIX on Wednesday, NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said 73% of officers are vaccinated, and 800 did so the day before. Shea went on to say that the number of those following the mandate changes “minute by minute at this point.”
The mandate goes into effect Dec. 1 for uniformed members of the Department of Corrections.
The two commissioners who oversee America’s largest police and fire departments have already said earlier this month that they support the mandate of the members of their respective departments. Shea had even made passionate pleas to officers in a video message, urging them to get vaccinated.
More than 60 NYPD employees have died from COVID-19. The fire department, whose emergency medical technicians and paramedics worked around the clock in the early days of the pandemic, lost 16 workers to the virus as of last week.
Rafael Pujols gives us the details.
The five counties were the first to enact one of the strictest vaccination mandates in the country, a radical measure that requires vaccinations for everyone entering a bar, restaurant, nail salon, gym, or sports game, to increase the overall percentage. of the population protected from COVID. 19.
Mayor De Blasio continues to encourage those who have not been vaccinated to do so. At the rate the city is going, he says, only about a million adult New Yorkers remain unvaccinated.
“At this point, there are only about a million adults left to vaccinate and they keep coming in. The incentives, the mandates, everything is working,” De Blasio said.
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