Thursday, September 19, 2024
Jay Varma: Scamdemic Wizard
Tuesday, July 11, 2023
AOC feigns ignorance about the vaccine mandate's effect on workers and parents
I had a very brief conversation with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently that drove this point home. It was at the end of one of her town hall meetings, which I often livestream on my reporting channel.
I have also been reporting on how New York’s vaccine mandates have affected people since 2021, and I’ve been trying to ask AOC about her position on this issue since New York City’s mandates were in full effect. Maybe I’ve missed something, but I have never heard her address the question of mandates in any forum.
AOC and her team have always exercised tight control over interactions with media. I know that because I’m one of her constituents and attended many of her public events before I started reporting on them, going back to her primary race in 2018. At public events like town halls, she takes questions from constituents by having people submit them on slips of paper as they enter. The time she gives to press has always been very limited.
So when I wanted to ask about her position on the mandates, I knew the
drill. Here’s a question I submitted at a Bronx town hall in January of
this year:
Ocasio-Cortez didn’t take my question at that town hall or any of the others where I had submitted it. So I decided to give it a try as a member of the press. At the end of the event, I explained to one of her press aides that I’m an independent journalist and wanted to ask a question.
AOC was simply out of time! she told me, but perhaps I could ask her my question and she could pass it along. I declined that offer and stood by as AOC gave a detailed response to a question from another reporter about whether it was tough to balance being a disruptor with getting things done.
Fate and the press aide smiled upon me a couple town halls later at the July 6 Hunts Point event, and I was granted the opportunity to ask “one question!” of the overscheduled congresswoman. Now my question wasn’t about the government mandates, which were no longer in effect. It was about whether she would support reinstating workers who had been fired for not being vaccinated.
I asked AOC this question for all the reasons you can hear me spell out in the video: Labor rights and civil rights are among her signature issues. She speaks frequently about the importance of bodily autonomy.
She touched on all of these topics at the July 6 town hall, as well as the financial hardships people are facing as they recover from the pandemic. My question was relevant to all of those issues. It should have been right in her wheelhouse.
I was honestly surprised by her inadequate response. Not only did she not answer the question about reinstatement that I had asked, but she seemed only vaguely aware of the facts about mandates in New York.
Her response was about whether there should still be “health care requirements” in place, and she seemed to be saying that she thought there probably should be in some sectors, especially health care and education. So I guess I finally got the answer to my question about her position on mandates.
How could someone who presents herself as an advocate for workers be so unaware of the facts about policies that put tens of thousands of people out of work in her state and forced thousands more to take a pharmaceutical product that they considered dangerous to keep their jobs?
Estimates are that nearly 2,000 people in the public sector were fired outright under New York City’s sweeping mandates, while many others were forced into resigning or taking early retirement. It’s impossible to know how many lost their livelihoods in the private sector. An estimated 34,000 health care workers lost their jobs under the state mandate.
Monday, February 6, 2023
The vaccination extortion mandates against city workers is over
City workers and visitors to Department of Education buildings will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination starting Feb. 10, Mayor Adams announced on Monday.
“With more than 96 percent of city workers and more than 80 percent of New Yorkers having received their primary COVID-19 series and more tools readily available to keep us healthy, this is the right moment for this decision,” Adams said in a statement, encouraging people still to get vaccinated and boosted and take Covid precautions.
Many praised the move, saying it was overdue and followed common sense.
“Today’s announcement to suspend mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirements for all city workers proves that we’ve been correct all along,” Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park), a member of the City Council’s Common Sense Caucus, said in a prepared statement. “From the very beginning of this pandemic, my colleagues and I have opposed these requirements.”
Also in the caucus are Queens Councilmembers Bob Holden (D-Maspeth) and Vickie Paladino (R-Whitestone).
Those who refused vaccination will no longer be subjected to weekly tests and new hires will not need to prove their vaccination status, opening up a pool of potential employees to fill pandemic-driven manpower gaps, Ariola noted.
But she and her colleagues noted that there is still work to be done as approximately 1,780 workers fired for refusing vaccination will not be able to automatically return to work.
“This is an excellent step in the right direction, but more needs to be done: let’s rehire all those who lost their jobs to the DeBlasio-era mandates and bring the city back to normalcy,” Holden said on Twitter.
Paladino tweeted, “The war is not yet over, we must continue to fight for those who were wrongfully fired due to a personal medical decision.”
Those workers will be able to apply for positions with their former agencies through existing rules and regulations and hiring processes, the announcement from City Hall stated. The city said it has fully processed and issued decisions for all pending “reasonable accommodation” appeals.
“We are glad that the City has decided to stop fighting against our court victory overturning this unjust and illogical mandate,” PBA President Patrick Lynch said in a statement.
In September, a judge ruled that the city’s vaccine mandate for municipal workers in the city’s largest police union was invalid.
“However, the job is only half done,” Lynch continued. “We call on the City to ensure that our members who were fired or had their employment unfairly impacted are reinstated, with back pay and without condition.”
Monday’s announcement includes city DOE employees as well as nonpublic school, early childcare and daycare staff.
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Existing city worker vaccine mandate is illegal
A New York State judge ruled that NYC sanitation workers who were fired for failing to comply with the city’s COVID vaccine mandate must be rehired, in a blistering ruling that targeted Mayor Adams’ lifting of the mandate for private-sector workers.
Judge Ralph Porzio blasted the city order requiring municipal employees to get the jab as “arbitrary and capricious” in a Monday ruling in state Supreme Court in Staten Island.
The lawsuit was brought by 16 sanitation workers who were fired in February after refusing the October 2021 mandate imposed by the de Blasio administration. Porzio ruled they could return to work — and get back pay — starting Tuesday at 6 a.m.
“We shouldn’t be penalizing the people who showed up to work, at great risk to themselves and their families, while we were locked down,” he wrote.
He slammed the Adams administration for lifting the vaccine mandate for private-sector workers and student athletes last month while keeping it in place for public employees.
“There is nothing in the record to support the rationality of … keeping a vaccination mandate for public employees, while vacating the mandate for private sector employees or creating a carveout for certain professions like athletes, artists and performers,” Porzio wrote.
“This is clearly an arbitrary and capricious action because we are dealing with identical unvaccinated people being treated differently by the same administrative agency.”
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Why New York City has a vaccine extortion mandate and why they don't give a shit about city workers
This entirely debunks the mayor's office claims that this guy wasn't close to Adams. If anything, looks like Baugh was one of Adams closest advisors to keep the city worker vaccine mandate going for absolutely no sane reason. Makes me wonder if Baugh worked on de Blasio's team that started this city policy failure that has crippled municipalities.
Friday, September 23, 2022
Judge finds vaccine mandate illegitimate and orders restitution against the city
#BREAKING Judge Rules Vaccine Mandate INVALID for NYC PBA Members pic.twitter.com/JrSlJAcJWa
— NYC PBA (@NYCPBA) September 23, 2022
Wednesday, September 21, 2022
NYC health department drops vaccine extortion mandate for school sports participation
Students who participate in a range of extracurricular activities including sports will no longer face a COVID vaccine requirement, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday, ending the only mandate that applied to public school students.
In August 2021, the city announced that students participating in “high risk” extracurricular activities must be vaccinated against the coronavirus, a policy that covered roughly 20,000 students in the Public School Athletic League who play sports ranging from bowling to basketball. It also included students in chorus, band, and musical theater programs that weren’t part of their regular course loads.
Adams scrapped that requirement on Tuesday along with the vaccine mandate for private employers just before receiving the latest bivalent booster in front of reporters. But other vaccine requirements affecting public schools still stand: All staff must be vaccinated, including coaches who are employed by the city, and so must any visitors to school buildings, a policy that some parents have criticized.
City officials did not present a clear explanation about why the vaccine mandate is being peeled back in some contexts but not others.
“I don’t think anything dealing with COVID is — makes sense,” Adams said when asked about dropping the vaccine mandate for private employees but keeping it for public ones. “You make the decisions based on how to keep our city safe, how to keep our employees operating by taking the vaccine.”
Sounds like Adams knows how stupid, spiteful and wrong this vaccine mandate is but doesn't have the guts to abolish it entirely. Truly the most compromised elected official in this town.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022
Vaccine extortion mandates continue for city workers but ends for private sector workers a week before Election Day
The city’s coronavirus vaccine mandates for private sector workers and student athletes are ending, but the inoculation requirement for municipal workers will remain — at least for the time being.
Mayor Adams announced the rollback Tuesday at a City Hall press conference, stressing the need for New Yorkers to get their COVID booster shots.
Implemented by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, the private sector and student mandates have been in effect since late last year.
The workforce rule, which was the first of its kind in the country when rolled out by de Blasio in December, required that all private sector employees in the city be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. That mandate will sunset on Nov. 1.
The second policy, which mandated high school students be vaccinated to engage in sports and other extracurricular activities, ended Tuesday.
Adams attempted to temper his announcement with another message: that New Yorkers should get new booster shots aimed at protecting against highly transmissible COVID variants. To reinforce that, he got his second booster shot from the city’s Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan in front of a roomful of reporters.
“It is time to move on to the next level of fortifying our city,” Adams said. “It’s imperative to send the right message and lead by example as I’m doing today by getting my booster shot.”
Adams framed the rescinding of the mandates as providing more “flexibility” to parents and businesses regarding vaccines.
He noted that his shot Tuesday is just the first step in a new citywide digital and print vaccination campaign to encourage booster shots.
But even as Adams and Vasan announced the new campaign and the end of the two mandates, they struggled to explain the rationale behind enacting the one rollback while continuing to keep in place the mandate that city employees must be vaccinated — a contentious rule that led to workers being fired, lawsuits and political protests.
“We’re in a steady phase of pivot and shift,” the mayor said when asked if he plans to peel back the mandate on city workers. “We do things. We roll things out slowly. Right now, that is not on the radar for us.”
When asked how he can justify his decision, Adams said: “I don’t think anything dealing with COVID makes sense, and there’s no logical pathway of [what] one can do You make the decisions based on how to keep our city safe, how to keep our employees operating.”
Vasan responded that it’s important to not view “any of these decisions in isolation.”
“They’re all connected,” he said, referring to the city’s COVID policies. “We’re looking at all of our policies and thinking about a glide path towards normal, whatever the new normal looks like.”
Keeping the city worker vaccine extortion mandate, which looks like it's indefinite, is brazen discrimination and these two assholes are blatantly telling the public not to question it because they are not smart enough to comprehend while doing the worst gaslighting about justifying this policy that has done major damage to city services. And they did this hours after President Biden said the pandemic was over. When will the press finally question why this farcical unscientific mandate is allowed to continue and who is benefiting off it?
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Saturday, May 21, 2022
Back the unvaxxed blue
The city’s vaccine mandate has been put on “pause” for the NYPD so the force can avoid losing nearly 5,000 cops and employees as the weather — and crime — heats up, The Post has learned.
Currently, 91 percent of the NYPD’s uniformed cops and other personnel are vaccinated, City Hall says. That leaves an estimated 4,659 NYPD employees unvaccinated despite a deadline to get the shots by Oct. 29.
“In a nutshell, no decisions will be made, no further members will be forced to leave until further notice,” said a veteran NYPD sergeant, explaining the unwritten rule. “There hasn’t been any memo, just basically keep everything status quo and if issues arise we will revisit it down the road.”
Last month, an undisclosed number of officers received final notices rejecting their requests for religious or medical exemptions to the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for municipal employees.
But an unspecified number of requests remain pending, letting cops and others in a state of limbo keep working.
Saturday, April 23, 2022
Still inauguratin' and still vaccine discriminatin'
*MEDIA ADVISORY***
COUNCIL MEMBER JULIE WON INAGURATION
WHAT: Council Member Julie Won will be celebrating her inauguration ceremony tomorrow at the Museum of the Moving Image.
** PROOF OF VACCINATION WILL BE REQUIRED TO ENTER THE EVENT**
WHEN: Saturday, April 23, 2022.
DOORS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AT 1:30. THE EVENT WILL BEGIN AT 2:00 PM. RUN OF SHOW BELOW:
2:00pm: Carl Goodman ED of MOMI
2:00pm: Helen Ho emcee welcomes guests and begins the program
2:05pm: Korean Drum Group: Nantah
2:10pm: Invocation Denise Rhrissorrakrai
2:12pm: CCD Executive Director - K Bain
2:15pm: Senator Chuck Schumer
2:20pm: Attorney General Tish James
2:25pm: State Senator John Liu
2:30pm: Comptroller Brad Lander
2:35pm: Manhatitlan Mexican Folkloric Dance Group
2:40pm: Public Advocate Jumaane Williams
2:45pm: Queens Borough President Donavan Richards
2:50pm: Swearing in by former borough president Sharon Lee
2:55pm: Julie Won closing remarks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digital Learning Suite
3:00pm: Food & Refreshments - outdoor seating also available
3:05pm: Tibetan Community Center Dance
3:15pm: Irish Community Center
3:25pm: Thank you for coming, enjoy the space and feel free to explore the exhibits upstairs
WHERE: Museum of the Moving Image, 36-01 35th Ave, Queens, NY 11106
For inquiries, please contact: Kevin Kiprovski, 646-771-3240
What's with the vaccination requirement Jules? The Key to NYC was abolished months ago. Besides the blatant discrimination banning the public for not getting the failed vaccine injected into their bodies, this museum is actually breaking the law since their will be indoor dining at 3 P.M. When will this bullshit cease?
And what a collection of fauxgressive shitlibs too. (Oh, the absent public advocate got COVID a few weeks ago too)
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
(Former Mayor de Blasio's) Mayor Adams' and NYC Health Commissioner Chokshi's vaccine mandate hits the 11th hour for non-vaxxed municipal workers
Mayor Adams to city workers: Get vaccinated or get lost.
The Adams administration has alerted nearly 4,000 unvaccinated municipal employees — including cops and firefighters — that they will lose their jobs if they do not get their coronavirus shots by the end of next week.
Adams’ shot across the bow came in letters issued to the affected workers this week informing them that they have until Feb. 11 to get inoculated.
Speaking at City Hall on Monday, Adams said the ultimatum is about safety and argued that city employees have had long enough to comply with the municipal workforce vaccine mandate, which took effect Nov. 1.
“Safety is not only to stop the bullet, a knife or some other item. Safety is COVID. COVID is taking lives,” the mayor said. “There must be rules, and we must follow them. The rule is to get vaccinated if you are a city employee.”
The roughly 4,000 workers at risk of getting the boot fall into two categories, according to data provided by City Hall.
Wednesday, January 12, 2022
Ihr Kampf with mandate analogy
Newly elected northeast Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino walked back an explosive comment made during an interview on NY1 about her refusal to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status to City Council officials last week.
“I don’t need to show my papers. This is not Nazi Germany,” Paladino said during that interview.
On Tuesday, Paladino said she made the “ill-considered and inappropriate comparison” during an hours-long interview, and asked that it be struck from the record, but took “complete ownership of that mistake.”
“While my intent was to illustrate that requiring residents to show medical papers to earn a living or do everyday activities is an authoritarian practice that does not align with this country’s principles, it is never OK to compare anything to the evil of Nazi Germany,” Paladino said in a statement. “I apologize to those who were genuinely offended by my comment.”
She added that she would meet with local Jewish officials and her friends in the Jewish community in the coming days to discuss the matter.
The controversy arose nearly a week after Paladino was refused entry to the City Council’s first stated meeting of the new year.
The 67-year-old Republican refused to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status and was told by officials she would be barred from the chamber floor on Wednesday, Jan. 5. There has been no resolution to the standoff, and Paladino continues to oppose any effort to require people to disclose their vaccination status as a condition of employment or for any other reason.
“The idea that we are now essentially blackmailing people by threatening their jobs and their livelihoods is what is eroding public trust in vaccines,” said Robert Hornak, a Paladino spokesman. “People should be allowed to make their own decision on their healthcare. And nobody should be forced to disclose their personal medical information to anyone. Everyone has a right to privacy and that includes medical privacy. We will continue to stand up for that right as long as people are trying to use heavy-handed tactics to force their will on others.”
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Real estate firm and big bank swaggers back at Adams
A lawsuit has been filed in federal court challenging New York City’s sweeping mandate requiring nearly all private-sector businesses to ban unvaccinated employees from the workplace, asserting that the city’s attempt to control the coronavirus pandemic deprives tens of thousands of businesses from pursuing their livelihoods.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday contends businesses like Cornerstone Realty, a Staten Island real estate firm that is the only named plaintiff in the case, are being unduly forced to fire unvaccinated workers and asserts the city’s vaccination edict lacks mechanisms for businesses to appeal.
“This case is not about vaccines, but about an employer’s right to be heard,” the lawsuit states.
The edict was one of two-term Mayor Bill de Blasio’s final acts before relinquishing his office at the end of the year. He set a Dec. 27 deadline for virtually all private sector businesses — roughly 184,000 businesses that employ hundreds of thousands of people — to require workers to show proof that they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Businesses face fines of at least $1,000 for noncompliance.
The city’s new mayor, Eric Adams, has been in his job for less than a week but must immediately confront myriad challenges posed by COVID-19, including the latest surge that has spiked the number of infections to record levels.
It remains to be seen how Adams will respond to those challenges and what measures put in place by his predecessor he might keep or jettison as he formulates his own pandemic policies. Before taking office, Adams affirmed his support for the vaccine mandate, as well as de Blasio’s insistence on keeping schools open.
While acknowledging the turmoil the pandemic has wrought on small businesses, Adams made no mention of the mandate in his remarks during a visit Tuesday to a struggling small business in Manhattan, where he signed an executive order that he said would “slash red tape, reduce needless fines and penalties,” and would “bring relief to our heartbroken entrepreneurs.”
Chase Bank has shuttered more than three dozen branches in the Big Apple as the mega-bank struggles with staff shortages and vaccine mandates amid a surge in Omicron.
While the COVID variant has shelved many JP Morgan Chase employees, at least one local pol blamed the bank closures on “prohibitive” city and state mandates that require private-sector workers to be vaccinated before they can show up for a day at the office.
“It doesn’t give business an opportunity to open the front door,” City Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican, told The Post.
“If we want to re-populate our offices in New York, this mandate is a prohibition on many of those people coming back,” Borelli said.
Borelli also took to Twitter Wednesday to make his point, posting a photo of the laminated signs that adorn many closed branches.
“I don’t think the mandates are working in #nyc,” he wrote.
“Our branch is temporarily closed due to New York City’s COVID-19 Workplace Vaccination Order,” the sign on the door of one branch reads.
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Vaccinated and masked NYPD bounce a child out of Applebee's
NYPD kicks out a child for not having a vaccine passport.
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 28, 2021
pic.twitter.com/2bkeK0sRnv
Monday, December 20, 2021
Omicron panic shuts down hipster eateries
A new winter COVID-19 surge in New York City has temporarily shuttered more than two dozen restaurants, battering an industry that had only begun to claw its way back from a nearly two-year pandemic ordeal.
Almost all the restaurants that have closed have put up statements on Instagram explaining there are confirmed COVID-19 exposures among their staff, as the delta and omicron variants tear through the city. On Thursday, Eater compiled a list of a dozen of the restaurants, some of which have since reopened and some of which said they won't reopen for several days.
That number ballooned to at least 30 by Friday morning.
"It's a bummer to limp into the holiday break on such a difficult week for everyone," said Chef Dennis Ngo, who runs Greenpoint's Di An Di, which shut down Wednesday after one positive case on their team.
"We take this stuff very seriously," Ngo told Gothamist. "That necessitated us closing, and then we required everyone to go out and get tested. We were asking all of our team members to either get two rapid tests back-to-back on consecutive days, or one PCR test. And based on that, we would have felt comfortable opening if we had all of those results in for today, but we experienced a lot of testing challenges."
He said his 30 employees were met with long lines at testing locations around Greenpoint, and many sites ended up running out of rapid tests.
"Even the ones that got PCRs, they were promised results by the end of the day yesterday, and they still haven't seen results yet," he noted Thursday. Some tried to get home tests, but they "had to go to three or four pharmacies to get it. It became kind of a game yesterday of trying to find what was the fastest place or easiest way to get them rapid tests."
Ngo estimated the restaurant loses around $7,000-$9,000 each night it's closed. On top of that, they were already planning to close for two weeks at the end of the month starting next week to give their team a break from such a challenging year, so it's unclear whether they'll have the chance to reopen before then.
So far, there are more than ten restaurants in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint area that have shut down:Bernie's, Cozy Royale, Di An Di, We Got Company, Winonas, Thief, Frankel's Delicatessen, Pheasant, L'industrie Pizzeria, Misi, Lilia, Five Leaves, Four Horsemen. There were several more in other Brooklyn neighborhoods: LaLou, Love, Nelly, Nite Nite, Oxalis, Rialto Grande, Otway, Bar Meridian. Grand Army Bar and Ugly Baby both announced they would stay closed until the end of the year.
The surge has also hit places in Ridgewood, including The Acre (who recommended that anyone who went there this week get tested), Porcelain, and I Like Food (who said they would remain closed until after Christmas). Other restaurants that have shut down in various parts of the city include Temperance Wine Bar in the West Village, Bessou in the Lower East Side and Top Quality in Long Island City.
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
The NYPD is officially enforcing The Blaz's vaccine extortion mandate.
A group of 30 + antivaxxers claiming to be doing a “sit in” refused to check in at the host stand, skipped waiting customers, and sat themselves across multiple tables in a Cheesecake Factory in NYC.
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) December 15, 2021
They are now arguing with police. One antivaxxer compared the police to Nazis. pic.twitter.com/elFKOoTZ98
4 people ended up being arrested after refusing to leave. The antivaxxer group called it segregation and discrimination.
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) December 15, 2021
In reality, they skipped paying customers waiting in line. Seems like a bad strategy. pic.twitter.com/pdBMTmvCSR
Monday, December 6, 2021
The Blaz expands vaccine mandate for private companies despite recent judicial decisions deeming it unconsitutional.
All private-sector workers in New York City will be subject to the mayor's vaccine mandate starting Dec. 27, affecting 184,000 businesses, while vaccine proof for indoor dining, fitness and entertainment will be required for children ages 5 to 11, according to a toughened vaccine mandate announced by Bill de Blasio Monday.
The current rule will also expand to require two vaccine doses instead of proof of only one as far as people age 12 and older are concerned, the mayor said. That excludes people who were vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson's single-dose shot.
Kids aged 5 to 11 only need to show proof of one dose when the requirement for them kicks in on Dec. 14, considering they only first became eligible for their initial doses in early November and must wait at least 21 days between Pfizer's doses.
De Blasio hinted late last week that changes to the city's vaccine policies could be coming soon, given the latest challenges posed in the city's ongoing COVID war. He says more measures may be imminent as far as vaccinations go, too.
"We’ve got Omicron as a new factor. We’ve got the colder weather which is going to really create additional challenges with the Delta variant, we’ve got holiday gatherings," de Blasio said Monday as he announced the mandate on MSNBC. "We in New York City have decided to use a preemptive strike to really do something bold to stop the further growth of COVID and the dangers it’s causing to all of us."
The mayor was also asked about his legal authority to implement such an all-encompassing vaccine mandate, especially given President Joe Biden's mandate for private employers with workforces of 100 or more employees has stalled in the courts. De Blasio said there is a "legal right of the health commissioner to keep the people of this city safe. That is something that's been proven time and time again."
"When the health commissioner believes there is a pressing public health threat, he has the ability to act in that situation," the mayor said of the "broad strokes."
His corporation counselor, Georgia Pestana, affirmed the legal authority of the city's health commissioner to implement such sweeping rules and said city and state courts have continuously upheld that concept amid a number of challenges these last few months.
Pestana said the issue the Biden administration faces "doesn't really apply here" because the injunctions were issued over the legal authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to manage mandate implementation in one case and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in another.
"Here, I don't believe there is any question that Dr. [Dave] Chokshi has the authority to issue this mandate and it's the across-the-board nature of it that I think also makes it defensible," Pestana said.
He said the city will issue additional enforcement and reasonable accommodation guidance to support small businesses with implementation on Dec. 15, about a week and a half before the mandate takes effect. Asked about potential consequences, de Blasio says some have to be in play. He didn't elaborate but he said few businesses have had to be penalized to date because of the rules.
For the city's workforce, noncompliance with the vaccine mandate in the absence of an approved exemption comes with unpaid leave. Some smaller private businesses may not have that capacity, de Blasio acknowledged, which is why he says his administration is taking the next nine days to work out details with them.
Looks like everyone now is under the purview of Dr. Chok. A shell of a man nobody elected.
Saturday, December 4, 2021
The Blaz now wants full vaccination status for participating in society
A day after announcing five people in New York State tested positive for COVID’s omicron variant, Mayor de Blasio said Friday he is considering tightening vaccine mandates when it comes to restaurants and concert venues.
Such a mandate could include a second shot of the COVID vaccine, as well as boosters shots.
“With all of our approaches to COVID, we’re going to update them because we’re dealing with some new challenges,” he said. “We’re going to keep updating policies regularly to meet this challenge.”
De Blasio was responding to a question from WNYC’s Brian Lehrer about whether the city would require people seeking to eat indoors or attend concerts to show that they’ve been fully vaccinated — as opposed to providing proof of just one shot, which is the current requirement.
“That will be looked at along with a series of other actions because it’s really dynamic right now,” de Blasio said.
The mayor also pointed out that it is not just omicron he’s concerned about, but the spread of COVID’s delta variant in the winter months as well.
De Blasio, who is contemplating a gubernatorial run next year after he is term-limited out of office as mayor, was speaking a day after appearing alongside Gov. Hochul at City Hall on Thursday to alert New Yorkers that the heavily mutated omicron variant had found its way to the Empire State.
This idiot wanting to do this in the last hours of his abominable reign as mayor confirms that it's his and Davey Chokshi's fault that he elongated the COVID era by letting the Delta variant spread with the initial mandate.
Thursday, December 2, 2021
Hundreds of Rikers Island C.O.'s suspended following extortion mandate deadline
Nearly 600 correction officers with the already depleted city Department of Correction workforce were expected to be placed on unpaid leave Wednesday for not getting inoculated against COVID-19, city officials said.
The roughly 570 uniformed members will be relieved of duty if they showed up for their shifts without getting immunized against the deadly virus following Tuesday’s deadline, according to DOC spokesperson Patrick Gallahue.
An additional 708 corrections officers have applied for an exemption from the vaccine mandate due to religious or medical reasons. They will remain on the job with weekly testing protocols as their applications are reviewed, according to Gallahue.
The figures were released Wednesday afternoon, hours after city officials came seemingly unprepared to the mayor’s daily morning press conference — in which DOC Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi quipped it would take “a level of math that is going to give everyone a headache” to provide a total number of officers on unpaid leave due to the mandate.
The DOC, whose employees have been among the city’s most vaccine-hesitant, did see a 31-point boost in its vaccination rate in the weeks leading up to the deadline for city jail workers.
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
C.O.'s will not comply to Blaz extortion mandate
The Department of Correction’s coronavirus vaccination rate has been stagnant for more than two weeks — with nearly half of the agency’s uniformed workforce still holding off on getting their shots despite a looming mandate deadline.
City Hall data released Tuesday shows that only 63% of Correction Department staff have gotten at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. That’s the same vaccination rate the department had on Oct. 31 and the lowest by far of all municipal agencies.
When only accounting for uniformed Correction Department staff — the majority of which are the correction officers tasked with guarding inmates on Rikers Island — the one-dose vaccination rate is just 57%, according to the latest data.
Mayor de Blasio’s vaccination mandate for the Correction Department is set to take effect on Dec. 1, sparking fears that thousands of the department’s roughly 8,400 uniformed staff could be suspended at a time when Rikers is already in crisis due to overcrowding, staffing shortages and violence. An unprecedented number of correction officers calling in sick to work fueled the emergency over the summer, though the number of sick-calls have recently diminished.
Benny Boscio, the president of the union representing city correction officers, said mandate-related suspensions could be a recipe for disaster.
“We still have officers working triple shifts with no meals and rest every day,” Boscio said. “To move forward with placing what little staff we do have on leave by Dec. 1 would be like pouring gasoline on a fire, which will have a catastrophic impact on the safety of our officers and the thousands of inmates in our custody.”
