New York City will implement a “first-in-the-nation” COVID vaccine mandate for all private-sector employers and expand existing city mandates to include children as young as five, outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.
Citing Germany as an example of a country that is reinstating some harsh COVID-related restrictions for its citizens, the mayor said during the press conference that “we cannot let those restrictions come back, we can not have shutdowns here in New York City,” as if COVID policies are not developed and implemented by very concrete government entities but rather “happen” accidentally.
For de Blasio, the alternative to lockdowns is more vaccine mandates: “Vaccinations work and vaccine mandates work,” the mayor claimed, despite the medically established fact (see here, here, and here) that vaccines do not prevent one from getting COVID or transmitting it to others, nullifying any medical sense in vaccination mandates in a bid to stop the infections.
The mayor added that “Omicron is here,” and “we know it is going to spread.” Luckily, per de Blasio, “we have the tools against it,” with vaccines being the best of them, “but we need to use those tools aggressively” and “preemptively,” he stressed.
Stating that “keeping New Yorkers safe” is his essential “mission,” de Blasio announced a list of new and additional measures that would presumably help him succeed.
First, everyone 12 years of age and older will need to show proof of receiving two vaccine doses — as opposed to one dose under the prior policy — to attend or be employed by indoor dining, fitness, entertainment, and performance venues starting December 27, unless they received Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine.
Then, starting December 14, everyone older than five will have to present proof of their first dose of the shot to be allowed to the aforementioned indoor venues.
Already, 127,000, or some nine percent of the young New Yorkers who just recently become “eligible,” have gotten their first COVID shots, per the mayor.
“Parents, you need to step up for the good of your children,” the mayor urged. De Blasio said how convenient and easy it is to get children jabbed, since “every single elementary school” in the city is hosting vaccination sites, in addition to numerous vaccination centers throughout the city. De Blasio’s call goes against the recommendations of the world’s top scientists and medical professionals to exclude children from the vaccination mandates due to the risks of COVID vaccinations heavily outweighing the benefits for that population.
The mayor further announced the expansion of the vax mandate for “high-risk” extracurricular activities such as participating in music bands, orchestra, sports teams, and dance. Since the vaccines are now available for the new age group, students of ages five to 11 will now have to get COVID shots to take part in “activities where there is a lot of close contact” and where children are “letting a lot of air out and have an impact on everyone around them,” per the mayor. The requirement goes into effect December 14.
De Blasio announced the most “exciting” part of the expanded mandates last. Beginning December 27, all employees of the city’s 184,000 private-sector businesses will have to be fully vaccinated. According to the mayor:
This is how we put health and safety first by ensuring there is a vaccine mandate that reaches everyone universally in the private sector. We’re going to do this so that every employer is on a level playing field, one universal standard.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi claimed the sweeping mandates are needed to protect those vulnerable members of society who are at risk of COVID, such as immunocompromised individuals and very young children who can not be vaccinated yet. Dr. Chokshi did not provide any rationale behind the approach of forcing the vast majority of the population to take an experimental drug with a concerning safety profile instead of focusing on protecting those at risk, other than claiming that “the vaccines work, and vaccine mandates work.”
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Biden’s former COVID advisor, also joined the press event and applauded the measure. He underlined the importance of the mandates in “getting our control,” saying,
Getting the unvaccinated vaccinated is critical to getting our control. We know that that will not happen voluntarily […] That’s where mandates come in. We know that no one likes to be required to do something, we all like to be given our choice, we are after all Americans, where freedom of choice is essential. But when we have this collective issue that we all have to get vaccinated to protect everyone, we do need to have mandates.
Dr. Emanuel added that the mandates “have proven effective even among the most resistant groups.”
According to city data, more than 76 percent of adult New Yorkers were fully vaccinated as of December 5, and 86.2 percent had received at least one dose.
On November 26, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced a state of emergency in response to the rising COVID cases in the Empire State and to the World Health Organization declaring Omicron a “variant of concern.” “It’s coming,” she posted on social media when announcing the emergency.
While federal and local governments are doubling down on COVID restrictions, Omicron has not yet claimed a single life, per the WHO’s latest data.
