Existing city worker vaccine mandate is illegal

NY Daily News

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.”

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

Say goodbye to Dr. Chok

  

 

 

Eyewitness News  

A walkout ceremony will be held Monday at the Department of Health in Long Island City for Health Commissioner Dr. David Chokshi.

Monday will be his final day on the job.

Dr. Chokshi has been leading New York City's response to the pandemic since August of 2020.

 
In an interview with Eyewitness News anchor Bill Ritter, the outgoing commissioner reflected on the toll the pandemic has taken on all of us.

"The stress and the grief and the trauma that everyone has gone through in their own ways so it's hard not to get emotional when you think about all those effects and the loss that so many people have experienced," Dr. Chokshi said.

In case anyone who "couldn't fully participate in society in NYC" and lost their job because of this asshole who implemented the vaccine mandate that stole their livelihoods and civil liberties, feel free to protest his "ceremony" at the DOH headquarters located at Queens Plaza. 42-09 28th St Long Island City.

(Former Mayor de Blasio's) Mayor Adams' and NYC Health Commissioner Chokshi's vaccine mandate hits the 11th hour for non-vaxxed municipal workers

  

NY Daily News

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.

AOC lets Dr. Chok take over a town hall

 

 Queens Chronicle

A virtual town hall on Wednesday, organized by the office of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx, Queens), was missing the U.S. representative herself.

Ocasio-Cortez brought on city Commissioner of Health Dr. Dave Chokshi to talk about Covid with her constituents, but was unable to make an appearance after what her office called an “unavoidable conflict” came up at the last moment. In her absence, Chokshi held down the floor, reiterating the importance of getting vaccinated and boosted in the face of the Omicron wave, and taking questions from constituents.

“We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to see our constituents at next month’s town hall,” said an Ocasio-Cortez spokesperson. 

Chokshi began his presentation by updating constituents about the progress the city has made fighting back the Omicron variant. As of this week, the seven-day case average per day has dropped below 8,000 — about a fifth of the 43,000-case-per-day peak earlier in January.

“We have climbed down from the worst of the Omicron peak, but we know we have more work to do,” he said.

Similarly the city has seen a decrease in Covid hospitalizations from a total of about 6,500 patients hospitalized citywide on Jan. 11 to under 4,700, according to the most recent state data. 

The guidance for preventing more cases has stayed generally the same in recent months: Get vaccinated and get boosted, wear a mask in public, but particularly a high-quality one like a KN95, KF94 or N95, and continue to get tested and stay home if you’re positive or feeling sick.

Chokshi acknowledged that breakthrough cases for the vaccinated have increased under Omicron, but said that inoculation still has been shown in those cases to be an important form of protection from severe disease and hospitalization.

When he began taking questions from the audience, one constituent asked about the risk of blood clots from the Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Chokshi recognized that there is a “small risk” of blood clotting, “most most significant for younger women” but said overall the vaccine’s protection exceeds the risks.

“The most important thing to know is that the benefits of vaccination far outweigh any small risks,” he said.

Whatever it was that was so important to abdicate her responsibility as a representative of the people to this gaslighting weasel, she could have easily rescheduled this for another day. Especially since this was on zoom. 

Apparently, Dr. Chok is more powerful than we thought.

Meet the new mandates, same as the old mandates

Chaos Erupts when Eric Adams comes out of his office. Protesters against mandates confront and yell at him because of the mandates #BreakingNews #NYC #MANDATE pic.twitter.com/46slZjie8y

— Leeroy Johnson (@LeeroyPress) November 3, 2021

 

 Eyewitness News

 Mayor-elect Eric Adams held COVID news conference unveiling his plans to combat COVID in New York City as he prepares to take office this weekend.

He was joined by current Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi and incoming Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan.

Adams said the plan is to, "Keep our city open. That's the goal. We can't shut down our city again."

As for existing mandates regarding vaccines and masks, they will stay in place with a few changes and adjustments.

The private-sector employee vaccine mandate will stay in place with a focus on compliance, not punishment. A dedicated unit will work with small businesses, stakeholders, and the mayor's corporate engagement committee to help implement the mandate, foregoing fines if employers engage with the city to help get their workers vaccinated.

The city will study the need for an "up to date" mandate program to require booster shots for all New Yorkers currently covered by the vaccine mandates and engage with unions, the business community, and other shareholders. The data shows that booster shots are extremely effective against Delta and earlier COVID strains, but the city says it does not yet have definitive data on omicron.

The city will set a deadline of this spring for a decision on whether or not there should be a vaccine mandate in schools for the fall of 2022. The decision will be based on expected COVID risk in city schools and vaccination rates among students.

All other current mandates stay in place, including for masks.

"We are going to get through this," Adams said. "New York will lead the way for this entire country to follow."

As for New York City Schools, they will fully reopen on January 3, and they will implement the Stay Safe, Stay Open plan.

It includes doubling surveillance testing and adjusting the Situation Room and quarantine protocols. Sending home millions of rapid at-home tests for students and educators.
They will also strengthen mitigation measures including higher quality masks and better ventilation.

 Incoming-Mayor Adams says they will surge resources to the Health + Hospitals system to ensure enough capacity to address new hospitalizations from omicron. Ambulatory care will be shifted to virtual when possible to shore up nurse staffing levels and other measures.

He also plans to improve safety in congregate settings like jails, shelters, and nursing homes at high risk by supporting rapid isolation and quarantine. They will also provide ready access to vaccination and testing.

As far as COVID testing efforts for the city, the Adams administration plans to increase testing with more sites and mass-access to rapid tests.

The city says it will provide clear testing protocols for specific settings, including in the private sector.

The city will also surge resources to the Health Department, including more than 250 staff, to keep the public health infrastructure strong and at adequate capacity.

Three more months of Dr. Chokshi

 NBC New York

 

Dr. Dave Chokshi, the commissioner of the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, will stay on in that role through mid-March, Mayor-elect Eric Adams said Wednesday.

Chokshi will then be replaced by Dr. Ashwin Vasan, a primary care physician and mental health expert.

Chokshi, often referred to as "the city's doctor," became health commissioner in Aug. 2020. He also remains a practicing primary care physician at Bellevue.

The Blaz expands vaccine mandate for private companies despite recent judicial decisions deeming it unconsitutional.

 

NBC New York

 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. 

 

The Blaz, the Chok and Porter are juking the "Gold Standard"

Queens Chronicle

Since all school staff have been required to get vaccinated, the amount of in-school Covid-19 testing has all but ceased for building personnel, according to city data.

On Tuesday, only 26 teachers were tested citywide, compared to 6,661 students.

Only 33 percent of children ages 5 to 17 are vaccinated citywide, according to city data, so they continue to be regularly tested but many people would like to see rigourous testing of teachers to continue, too.

Ariela Rothstein, a teacher in Elmhurst, said she got a text from a colleague on Nov. 16 saying that the Department of Education changed its policy for staff testing and that they would no longer be included in the weekly surveillance tests. She said there was no notice from the school or the DOE and that she has not been notified of testing going on during work hours since.

“It’s very frustrating because we have family members, some of whom can’t be vaccinated — some are elders, some are little kids. So we’re all getting tested ourselves to help make sure we’re not bringing it home but we’re having to do that on our own time,” said Rothstein.

“Staff members with young kids are having to find ways to get tested and just, think about the drain — we’re already really overworked and then we have to find a site that is open and gives results with a good turnaround time,” she said.

Rothstein said she had to get tested at a tent in her neighborhood when she was exhibiting symptoms but did not get her results back for five days. (They were negative.) When she would get tested at her job, she would get results in 24 hours.

“We need an increase of testing, not a decrease,” she said.

According to the DOE, it did provide “courtesy testing” to staff who were not fully innoculated to ensure compliance with the state mandate and now that all staff must be fully vaccinated, it is “adjusting” the courtesy program to make it available to all.

Davey Chokshi reminds you to serve your unvaccinated relatives outside on Thanksgiving

 

 

CBS New York 

Chancellor Porter screwed up, enables superspreader at Astoria school

Astoria Post 

The city shut down an Astoria public school for 10 days due to a COVID-19 outbreak among students and teachers.

The Department of Education closed the doors of P.S. 166 The Henry Gradstein School beginning Wednesday after 25 positive cases were reported in the last seven days. All classes are being held remotely during the 10-day closure, which ends on Nov. 19.

According to DOE data, 22 students and three staff members tested positive for COVID-19 from Nov. 3 through Nov. 9.

P.S. 166 is only the second school to be fully closed due to a COVID-19 outbreak since the start of the school year. The first was in East Harlem.

The DOE aimed to reduce the number of school closures — which parents said interrupted their childrens’ learning last school year — when it introduced a new COVID-19 policy this term.

The current policy states that schools will only be closed when the city’s health department determines that there is “widespread transmission” in the school. The DOE, however, doesn’t specify how many cases determine the threshold for widespread transmission.

Previously, the DOE shuttered school buildings for two weeks when at least two unrelated coronavirus cases were confirmed. The policy resulted in frequent closures, which parents said created instability and confusion for young students.

The policy change appears to have resulted in fewer interruptions thus far.

Prior to a full closure, the DOE shuttered several classrooms at P.S. 166, meaning full classes of students and their teachers were quarantining and learning remotely.

Since classes began on Sept. 13, there have been 37 total positive cases among the 975 school members — both students and staff — at P.S. 166.

This school already had 15 staffers test positive and Porter kept this "gold standard" going for another 8 weeks. Even more deranged is that a vax short bus was going to stop by PS 166 to get kids inoculated for and I quote Dr. Davey Fauci Jr. "extra layer of protection"

Chokshi screwed up

 

NY Daily News

A city effort to vaccinate newly eligible kids ages 5 to 11 against coronavirus kicked off Monday morning at school clinics — but ran into some early hiccups.

Anxious parents spent hours waiting outside some schools in the hopes of securing a vaccine dose for their elementary-age kids, only to be told the clinic didn’t have enough supply.

Parents at Public School 8 in Brooklyn Heights began lining up at 6 am for the city-run school vaccine distribution, with the line swelling to more than 100 people, one parent said. But city workers running the clinic said they could only give out 50 shots because they needed to conserve doses for other schools they were visiting Monday, according to parents at the school.

“I just don’t understand why they would have taken this approach,” said Michele Walsh, the parent of a first-grader and a fifth-grader, who was turned away after waiting for more than an hour.

Walsh said she refrained from looking for other appointments for her kids because she was counting on getting them vaccinated at the school.

She added that PS 8 administrators even gave city officials a heads-up in advance that there was going to be a huge demand for the shots Monday morning.

Walsh was even more frustrated that her kids had to miss the start of school while waiting outside in vain for a COVID-19 vaccine. “If they had just given us numbers and told us how many they had, the kids could’ve been in school instead of waiting outside,” she said.

A parent at PS 40 in Manhattan reported a similar supply problem, and said the shipment of shots still hadn’t shown up by 10:45 am — nearly four hours after the distribution was supposed to start.

Dave Chokshi's health department offices are COVID traps

 

NY Post 

 About 1,000 New York City Health Department employees have signed a letter blasting the agency’s return-to-office guidelines, accusing it of failing to communicate internal COVID-19 cases and not following a “science-informed” approach, including masking and social distancing.

“It’s a huge contradiction because we’re the Health Department,” one agency worker told The Post.

“We, of all agencies, are falling short of implementing an evidence-based and science-informed return-to-office process.”

“We’re not just whiny people who want to sit at home in sweatpants on our laptops,” a second DOH employee said.

“We are all so committed and dedicated to public health, and so hardworking. But we want scientific evidence explaining why it’s safe to go back to the office.”

Their eight-page Oct. 1 letter to DOH Commissioner Dave Chokshi says the agency’s Queens headquarters lacks onsite COVID-19 testing and sufficient supplies of hand soap and sanitizer.

“We’ve continuously found hand sanitizing stations empty on the 11th floor and a lack of hand soap available at 11th-floor kitchen sinks, despite having placed several service requests,” the fed-up public health workers wrote in the letter, which was obtained by The Post.

 In addition, not all employees are adhering to mask rules — and instead of having supervisors enforce them, workers are asked to “police each other,” which creates uncomfortable situations, according to the letter.

The open cubicle setting at Long Island City headquarters also doesn’t allow for social distancing because desks are closer than six feet apart, a third DOH worker told The Post.

The letter requests agency officials “regularly provide information about our actual risks at the worksite, based on available evidence,” including the number of staff infected with COVID-19 and the “date of diagnosis at different DOHMH worksites.”

“Be transparent with actual details on airflow, expected transmission rate in our workplace settings, the rationale for removing the physical distancing requirement, and why it is considered safe to have us eat at our desks,” it says.

The exasperated agency workers also want to know why the commissioner didn’t question the mayor’s decision to force all 300,000 city workers back to their desks full-time starting Sept. 13 if it isn’t safe.

They note that Chokshi told them during an internal town hall meeting in August that productivity hadn’t suffered from remote work during the pandemic — despite the mayor saying that municipal workers don’t get as much done at home.

The Health Department has led the city’s response to the pandemic that’s sickened over 1 million New Yorkers and killed nearly 35,000 residents.

This exchange during a very overlooked zoom briefing about the Key to NYC revealed DOH officials flouting these guidelines.

 

Here's some more proof of @NYCHealthCommr's negligence and dereliction. During a #KeyToNYC zoom hearing, a citizen asked about the DOH officials flaunting of pandemic guidelines and the DOH rep suddenly bailed and the @NYCDoITT commish disregarded it and said it was irrelevant pic.twitter.com/yipNCVbOcX

— This is JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) October 20, 2021

A student died of COVID-19 and Mayor Bill de Blasio, Chancellor Meisha Porter Dr. Dave Chokshi and Dr. Mitchell Katz will not reveal any information about what school the student's from, how the student got infected or when exactly the student died

 

 

 

Gothamist

Another New York City child has died of COVID-19, according to data posted this week by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The death raises the city’s reported toll among the youngest New Yorkers to 30.

Citing privacy concerns, the mayor and the health department wouldn’t confirm the child’s age, when they died and if they were exposed at school. But it’s the first COVID-19 fatality reported among minors (which covers ages 0 to 17 years) since public school students returned to classrooms on September 13th. The city’s last pediatric deaths were counted on August 2nd, when the health department raised the childhood figure from 26 deaths to 29.

Fewer COVID cases have been reported in children over the course of the pandemic, due in part to the lockdowns and the prioritization of adult patients. But infected children are way less likely to be hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Thank god our youngest kids have been the least affected,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Brian Lehrer Show on Friday

Yet when pediatric hospitalizations happen, the kids can suffer routine complications such as respiratory failure and also stand a small chance of developing a later-stage condition known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) (or as it's commonly known as Long COVID - JQ LLC)

 “Thank god our youngest kids have been the least affected,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told the Brian Lehrer Show on Friday

 Admin note: apologies for the long headline, but names have to be named since the city refuses to do it.

Don't bring your kids to town, ma'am. Leave the kids at home, sir. Don't bring your kids to town

 

 NY Post

Hey, remember the children? We used to say things about them like, “They’re the future,” or “They should be exposed to culture,” or even “They should definitely go to school.” But the last 17 months have seen our society put kids dead last again and again. Now New York City is seemingly looking to banish them from public spaces altogether. 

Announcing a “new approach,” called the “Key-to-NYC Pass,” the mayor decreed that unvaccinated persons won’t be able to participate in most indoor activities in Gotham.

Hizzoner explained it thus: “The key to New York City. When you hear those words, I want you to imagine the notion that because someone’s vaccinated, they can do all the amazing things that are available in this city. This is a miraculous place, literally full of wonders. And if you’re vaccinated, all of that is going to open up to you. You have the key. You can open the door.”

Left unsaid: Children will be waiting outside the door of this miraculous place of wonders. The mayor’s announcement included no exceptions for kids, leaving city parents, as well as potential tourists to New York, in limbo once more.

Asked about the announcement, Dr. Dave A. Chokshi, the city’s health commissioner, gave the impression that children were simply forgotten when the policy was crafted — neglect that is fully in line with how kids have been treated throughout the pandemic.

“Many of them are settings where there won’t be children involved,” Chokshi said. “For those that may involve children, this is something that we have to take into consideration.” Children will be taken into consideration after the announcement of a policy whose formulation didn’t take them into consideration. Got it.

 

The Blaz gives ultimatum to health workers

 

AMNY

Starting next month, Mayor Bill de Blasio officially announced Wednesday, all New York City health care employees will be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine or face mandatory weekly testing — and even possible suspension from their job.

The aggressive new COVID safety requirement begins on Monday, Aug. 2 and applies to all NYC Health and Hospitals staff and Department of Health clinical workers. Those who fail to follow the mandate will be subject to “suspension without pay,” the mayor said during his Wednesday morning press conference. 

For de Blasio, it comes down to one thing: halting the spread of the Delta variant, a far more contagious and potent version of COVID-19.

“This is about keeping people safe and stopping the Delta variant. If we want to beat COVID once and for all, we have to stop the Delta variant,” de Blasio said. 

According to City Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi, the mandate applies to “all of our clinic-based staff” which includes, nurses, doctors, social workers, custodians and registrars.

Employees who are vaccinated must show a proof of vaccination and that at any time, health care employees can decide they want to get the shot, and will no longer be required to get weekly testing. 

“The simple fact is that if you’re vaccinated, virtually every activity is safer,” Chokshi said. “Because of the Delta variant, increasingly, the choice is between infection or vaccination and that can mean the difference between life and death. Vaccination has been and continues to be the single most important precaution we can take to interact with the public and our colleagues.” 

He added that the plan for the weeks ahead is to extend this requirement to “additional Health Department staff” beyond the clinic staff.

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