Mayor de Blasio didn’t bat an eye at flagging coronavirus vaccination rates for cops, firefighters and garbage collectors on Thursday — even as the deadline for his municipal workforce vaccine mandate loomed just hours away.
The mandate requires city employees to submit proof of at least one coronavirus shot by 5 p.m. Friday, and de Blasio disclosed data in his Thursday morning briefing showing the NYPD, FDNY and Department of Sanitation all still have staff vaccination rates below 75%.
Nonetheless, Hizzoner said he isn’t second-guessing his mandate.
“I am not having second thoughts,” he said. “We expected that a lot of the vaccinations would happen toward the end of the deadline. We also know a lot of people make the decision once they really realize that they’re not going to get paid. That’s just the human reality.”
De Blasio predicted a sharp spike in vaccinations before Monday, when municipal workers who cannot show proof of at least one shot will be suspended without pay.
“Today and tomorrow, you’re going to see a lot of movement, and then I’m not going be shocked if you see movement even over the weekend when people get the formal notifications about their job status,” the mayor said.
In contrast to de Blasio’s confidence, NYPD, FDNY and Sanitation Department brass have said in recent days that they are preparing for the eventuality that roughly 25% of their workforces will be placed on leave once enforcement of the mandate begins.
According to the latest data from de Blasio, 74% of NYPD cops have gotten vaccinated, while the FDNY and the Sanitation Department have 64% and 67% staff immunization rates respectively.
With some staff shortages appearing inevitable, de Blasio said city agencies have prepared “exceptional” contingency plans.
“They have a variety of tools available — mandatory overtime, scheduling changes, there’s other options they can turn to to address the situation,” de Blasio said.
For example, the mayor continued, “We had a lot of times in 2020, where we had huge shortages of personnel because people were out sick with COVID, and the NYPD kept things moving and they will again.”
The persistent refusal to get inoculated among some in the municipal ranks comes despite the fact that de Blasio’s administration is giving city workers $500 just to get a dose of the life-saving vaccine.
As de Blasio spoke at City Hall, hundreds of municipal workers, including active-duty FDNY and NYPD members, marched on his Gracie Mansion home on the Upper East Side to protest the approaching mandate.
Looking beyond Friday’s deadline, de Blasio is facing an even more difficult challenge on Dec. 1, when Department of Correction officers will be placed on unpaid leave if they can’t show proof of vaccination.
The DOC is the only city agency that was given an extension to comply with the mandate, as just 51% of its officers have gotten their COVID-19 jabs, according to City Hall data.
©2021 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
Consider the source. He is a die-hard Liberal who will sink the ship rather than do what it takes to save it. Innocent victims are collateral damage.
Guys with the diminutive mental capacity of a Joe Biden or De Blasio are lucky to get off a first thought, let alone a second one, neither of which ever come out productive. These are men whose ears are in tuned only to the lesser Angels of their nature and ear whisperings of greater party leaders who only whisper marching orders in step with true national socialist partylike goose stepping. In Biden’s case he keeps telling reporters he isn’t allowed to respond any more on a failing subject like Afghanistan,,, should be arrested and grilled to find out just who is his Puppet Master, who really is calling the shots and not running the country but running down the country,,, people who obviously would even throw 25-30% of their own unionized people under the bus to prove they alone are fit to call the shots to control every personal aspect of the lives of THE PEOPLE up to and including what is injected into their bodies and which toilet paper they can use to clean the democrat residue off their persons with. It’s the same old “Ver are Your Papers?” of 1936 Germany. Like Lenin, who targeted for attack and takeover, the Police and duly elected Russian Government officials, it is first social chaos, then social conquest that they plot to use to divide and conquer this last best hope of mankind.
We have lost control of our Government, Freedom of choice and movement, Freedom of Speech.
We are now being told what to put in our body’s and our children’s body’s, It’s time we The People take back what we have lost.
All of the Police, Fire and Sanitation people call in sick and stay home.
Pity we can’t stick him and all the OTHER commucrats, ON A SHIP, sail it out into the middle of no where, AND SINK IT WITH THEM ON IT!
he is a DICtator who loves communism.
Tyrants and dictators rarely second guess their decisions. When they do it is in private and they’d sooner die than show any ‘weakness’ by amending their poor decisions.
When the crime rate is even more astronomical than it is in NYC, when people are dying not of COVID because their is no one to respond to a shooting or car accident, when buildings and lives are going up in smoke due to a lack of firefighters, and when the streets are filled with garbage THEN the people might come to understand that de Blasio is only interested in his way, his view, and his power.
The sad part of that scenario is that the people will suffer as is the case anytime a tyrant or dictator rules. Those who have money will leave. Those who do not not have money will be forced to live in the squallor of a once great city.
Those who have money will leave. Those who do not not have money will be forced to live in the squalor of a once great city.
Medical and first responder skills are portable. Florida is offering a bounty for cops. And His Honor isn’t requiring vaccines for the growing number of homeless.
Fun Fact: The last Census where New York did not lose a seat in the House of Representatives was 1940. The state will go into the 2022 election with 19 fewer House seats than 1942, an 80-year trend.
AND i wonder, How many of those who DO LEAVE, will ever think about CHANGING THEIR DAMN POLITICAL POSITIONS?? Or will they continue to be commucrat lemmings, and keep going DEMON-rat, in what ever city welcomes them in?!
Gotta love the “I AM VERY ANGRY” sign.
Not the language I remember New Yorkers speaking before the Democrats gelded them.
They voted like their lives depended on a politician and now it does.
You couldn’t find a more worthless individual than De Blasio if you ran a world wide add. Wanted: low life worthless ignoranus to destroy a large city.
Biden would beat him, hands down.