PUSH BLAZ ON VAXXING
Make cops, FDNY, others get shots: pols
For weeks, Mayor de Blasio has relied on a handy metaphor to describe the city’s approach to getting more New Yorkers vaccinated.
“We’ve been climbing the ladder,” he likes to say.
That “ladder” is his shorthand for the steps the city has taken so far to beat back COVID through its vaccination efforts — $100 incentives to get inoculated, a mandate that school workers get at least one shot or be relegated to the sidelines without pay, and requirements that restaurants check vaccination IDs before letting people dine on their premises.
But this week, Hizzoner has been somewhat circumspect when it comes to revealing what the next rung on his ladder will be — and that’s prompting several elected officials and public health experts to urge him to step up the pace of the climb and expand vaccine mandates to cover cops, firefighters, correction officers and independent childcare workers, among others.
“The verdict is in: They work,” Councilman Stephen Levin said of vaccine mandates. “Now is the time to do what’s right.”
As of Monday, 95% of public school workers have received at least one COVID vaccine dose, and de Blasio said Tuesday he expects that number to continue to climb.
But vaccination rates at other agencies appear to be much lower.
According to the data compiled by the city, the NYPD’s current vaccination rate now stands at 68%. The Fire Department’s rate is 59%. And at the Department of Correction, which has struggled desperately to manage a staffing crisis on Rikers Island, it is 49%.
But de Blasio has so far balked, at least publicly, when it comes to expanding his mandate to those agencies. When asked Tuesday about when he plans to expand that mandate to include other city workers, he didn’t offer much detail.
“We’re looking at all the different pieces of the equation,” de Blasio said. “We’re looking at that right now in the coming days, but don’t have a specific deadline for you.”
Levin praised the mayor’s handling of the mandate for school workers, but said it should be expanded, and soon.
“He should do it right away,” the Brooklyn councilman said.
Levin is far from a lone voice on the subject.
Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan), chairman of the Council’s Health Committee, said Tuesday that the mandate should be expanded to cops, firefighters, correction officers, childcare and homeless services workers. He pointed out that the current schools mandate and the state mandate for health care workers have so far weathered the court challenges they’ve faced.
“The early success of requiring the vaccine for health care and education workers should give us the confidence to go further with agencies operating in high-risk settings or that have contact with the public,” he said.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) has also lauded de Blasio’s handling of the school’s vaccination mandate the city now has in place, but he said the city should now follow the lead of President Biden, who mandated last month that all federal workers be vaccinated
“I give the mayor enormous credit for mandating vaccines early on. He set the precedent that the state and federal governments followed, but it’s time to do more,” Torres said. “The city of New York should be as aggressive in mandating vaccines as the federal government.”
Public health experts also want to see more get up and go from de Blasio when it comes to his ladder, especially given the fact that his term ends in three months.
Dr. Celine Gounder, a professor focused on infectious disease at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, predicted de Blasio would move soon because the already existing mandates cover workers represented by two of the biggest unions in the city — and so far those directives have passed legal muster.
“It makes it easier to expand it for them,” she said. “The Police Department are also first responders. I should not have to worry about calling them for help because I’m worried that the officer responding to the scene might have COVID. That alone is a compelling reason.”
Irwin Redlener, director of Columbia University’s Pandemic Resource and Response Initiative, said de Blasio and other leaders in government should “pull out all the stops” when it comes to vaccines — and that includes expanding mandates.
“I would go full tilt mandating vaccines to every single employee,” Redlener said. “The faster he gets that done, the better.”
Some sources privately wonder if de Blasio’s delay is tied to concerns that cops or correction officers might walk off the job to push back against such a mandate.
But if de Blasio follows the same rationale for them that he’s offered when it comes to teachers and other school workers, he shouldn’t have too much cause for concern.
“Some people are going to go a month, two months, and then the absence of pay in their life is going to really make an impact on their thinking,” he said Tuesday, referring to school workers. “So this is a situation where there’s more than one chance for redemption.”