A new “vaccinate or get tested” requirement comes to New York City

Jul 26, 2021

Ben Burke Producer

By Ben Burke (Producer)

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday all city employees will be required to vaccinate by September 13th or get tested once a week. The video above shows clips from Mayor de Blasio’s announcement.

“We’re also going to reinforce for all city government workers starting on Monday, reinforcing very clearly: If you are unvaccinated and you are a city employee, beginning on Monday, you must either wear a mask indoors at your work site at all times,” de Blasio said. “Or, if you would prefer not to, you have to immediately go get vaccinated.”

The city already put the “vaccinate or test” requirement in place for public health care workers last week. Expanding the requirement to the city’s 340,000 employees makes it one of the country’s largest employers to take such action.

“This means everybody,” de Blasio said. “This means, obviously, everyone who works in our schools, our educators and staff, it means the NYPD, the FDNY, it means all city agencies. It means people who work in offices and people work on the frontline. Everyone.”

The requirement is not a vaccine requirement, nor does it involve officials going door-to-door checking vaccination status. However, city officials hope the hassle of getting the weekly tests will motivate unvaccinated workers to get the vaccine.

“This is about our recovery. This is about what we need to do to bring back New York City,” de Blasio said. “This is about keeping people safe. This is about making sure our families get through COVID OK. This is about bringing back jobs, you name it.”

The rule, which includes public school teachers, takes effect around the time New York City students return to the classroom. However, that’s not the only reason de Blasio chose that time of year. “In September, everything is going to come together. September is the pivot point of the recovery,” de Blasio said. “September is when many employers are bringing back a lot of their employees. September is when school starts full strength. September is when people come back from the summer. September is when it will all happen.”

The announcement comes as cases are rising in the Big Apple. Since the end of June, the daily average of new cases has increased by more than 300 percent.

Meanwhile, daily vaccine doses given out has dropped to less than 18,000. That’s down from a peak of more than 100,000 in early April. About 54 percent of New York City residents are fully vaccinated.

Tags: Pandemic

Mayor Bill de Blasio, (D) New York: “So last week, I announced for our frontline health care workers in the public sector, (NYC) Health + Hospitals, DOH (referring to Department of Health), the COVID safety requirement: Simply show proof of vaccination or get tested every single week. And I said last week this was only the beginning and we would be climbing up the ladder, more mandates to come. Well, today is that day. On September 13th, the entire city workforce will be mandated under the COVID safety mandate to either get vaccinated, which is far preferable, or get tested once a week. This is about our recovery. This is about what we need to do to bring back New York City. This is about keeping people safe. This is about making sure our families get through COVID OK. This is about bringing back jobs, you name it. In September, everything is going to come together. September is the pivot point of the recovery. September is when many employers are bringing back a lot of their employees. September is when school starts full strength. September is when people come back from the summer. September is when it will all happen. This means everybody. This means, obviously, everyone who works in our schools, our educators and staff, it means the NYPD (referring to New York Police Department), the FDNY (referring to New York City Fire Department), it means all city agencies. It means people who work in offices and people work on the frontline. Everyone. Because September is when the rubber hits the road, and this is when we have to make the difference. And so, this mandate will be in place. We’re also going to reinforce for all city government workers starting on Monday, reinforcing very clearly: If you are unvaccinated and you are a city employee, beginning on Monday, you must either wear a mask indoors at your work site at all times. Or, if you would prefer not to, you have to immediately go get vaccinated. This is very, very clear. We will have to, unfortunately, be very tough. If a city government employee does not wear a mask indoors and they are unvaccinated, there unfortunately will have to be consequences because we have to take seriously, if someone’s unvaccinated, unfortunately, they pose a threat to themselves, but they also have a greater chance of spreading the disease.”