More Than 26,000 NYC Workers Didn’t Get Vaccine by Friday Deadline
By Ivan Pentchoukov
October 31, 2021 Updated: October 31, 2021
One in six workers employed by the city of New York declined to get a COVID-19 shot after a Friday deadline to show proof of vaccination, the city said on Oct. 30.
The vaccination rate among municipal workers jumped from 76 percent on Thursday to 83 percent on Friday, as thousands of police officers, firefighters, garbage collectors, and other city workers got the shot before the 8 p.m. deadline.
The Big Apple now braces for the fallout of running emergency and essential services without one in six workers across the board and the prospect of closed firehouses, fewer police and ambulances, and mounting trash.
Twenty-three percent of the workers in the fire and sanitation departments refused to take the vaccine by the Friday deadline. The vaccination rate jumped 8 percent for the fire department and 10 percent for the sanitation department on Friday.
The NYPD had 16 percent of its personnel decline to take the shot, down from 21 percent on the day before the deadline.
The fire department said it was prepared to close up to 20 percent of its fire companies and have 20 percent fewer ambulances in service while also changing schedules, canceling vacations, and turning to outside EMS providers to make up for expected staffing shortages.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said the sanitation department will move to 12-hour shifts, as opposed to the usual 8-hour shifts, and begin working Sundays to ensure trash doesn’t pile up.
Infections, hospitalizations, and deaths linked to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, have risen among people who have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine in recent months, according to newly released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But the bulk of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths remained among unvaccinated Americans, the data show.
Cases per 100,000 among the fully vaccinated increased from 12.3 in late June to 121 in mid-August, according to the data. Around the same time, COVID-19-associated hospitalizations in that population rose from 8.9 per 100,000 to 75. CCP virus deaths jumped from 0.1 per 100,000 to 1.1.
Mayor de Blasio said on Thursday that it is “human reality” that more workers will get the shot rather than lose pay.
“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,” de Blasio said.
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