Jay Varma: Scamdemic Wizard

"Dr." Jay Varma had orgies and dance raves on molly while advising Mayor de Blasio to shut the whole city down causing millions of New Yorkers to lose their jobs and then crafting the vaccine mandates that led to thousands of New Yorkers losing their jobs. And he did it for the power and the glory and from this video, for the p--sy. This lowlife belongs in prison but for now we'll take him getting humiliated while dining al fresco

AOC feigns ignorance about the vaccine mandate's effect on workers and parents

 

 NYC For Yourself

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.

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.”

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.

Vaccine extortion mandates continue for city workers but ends for private sector workers a week before Election Day

 

NY Daily News

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?

 

Donovan Richards didn't get the CDC memo

 

 JFC Donnie, you're going to act like the CDC's recent guidelines didn't come out a week earlier? And you're also going to ignore the fact that people wouldn't get their kids under 5 vaccinated even without backpack bribes? Keep playing the fool Mr. Borough President.

I forgot to mention that this vaccination drive is being held on Primary Election day, so I guess people have another reason to miss this. 

Update:

Oh, and this happened. Wonder why the Queens Borough President is trying to provoke shit?

 

COVID hits Kathy Clown

AMNY 

Governor Kathy Hochul tested positive for COVID-19 Sunday, and the state’s chief executive said in a social media post that she did not show any symptoms of the illness.

Hochul’s diagnosis comes as virus cases spike again across New York City — though thanks to vaccinations, booster shots and antiviral pills, most infected New Yorkers are winding up asymptomatic or with mild cases.

“Today I tested positive for COVID-19. Thankfully, I’m vaccinated and boosted, and I’m asymptomatic. I’ll be isolating and working remotely this week,” Hochul said in a Tweet on May 8.

“A reminder to all New Yorkers: get vaccinated and boosted, get tested, and stay home if you don’t feel well,” she continued.

 Two booster shots and this fool is telling people to get them. She will not even question how they failed to protect her from contagion. 

Fake doctors have been making vaccination advisories at the Department of Health

How the left is losing me 

Toggling seamlessly between bikini and lab coat, Dr. Risa Hoshino’s Instagram persona embodied the millennial feminist: a pediatrician treating covid patients on the front lines who could still show off her body and build her profile as a lifestyle influencer. A vaccine advocate who collaborates with nationally renowned physicians, yet also finds time to talk about her favorite lipstick stain. A physician who manages to create science-education content for free in her downtime, then complains about being so underpaid and overworked that she asks her followers to contribute $5 each to her personal “coffee fund” (hundreds of her followers obliged).

After Dr. Hoshino unsurprisingly grew her Instagram to 113,000 followers in a year-and-a-half, Medical Marketing + Media  dubbed her one of “The top 12 physician influencers” on that platform.  Beckers HR called her a "top 10 physician influencer" and The Scientist lauded her as "a veteran of using social media to debunk scientific falsehoods.”

The only problem? She crafted her entire “covid health hero” persona on half-truths and exaggerations.

If you’ve been active on social media during the pandemic era, you may have noticed doctors and public health experts rising from obscurity and swiftly developing large followings.  Posting prolifically about masks, vaccines, and other covid-19 mitigation measures, these physicians and scientists flaunt their credentials including the prestigious institutions where they studied, establishing their credibility and, in turn, their respective brands as serious authoritative voices. A posed profile photo in a white lab coat (stethoscope optional) often helps add a final veneer of gravitas.

These doctors, who mark themselves with hashtags such as #medtwitter or #tweetiatrician, almost exclusively push a narrative emphasizing the dangers of Covid-19 infection, even among children who are statistically at very low risk.  At the same time, their social media posts minimize any potential harms or side effects from either non-pharmaceutical interventions – such school closures or masking toddlers –  or vaccines.  

A corporate media invested in promoting a government public health narrative plagued by inconsistent messaging, combined with an ever-growing reliance on smartphones and other devices, created a perfect environment for these social media medical personalities to thrive.

Enter the Instagram Doctor, MD:  Youthful, often conventionally attractive, always prepared to answer your questions. Their social media feeds burst with the concise messaging and advice laypeople craved throughout the pandemic, presented in simple terms with colorful infographics, catchy taglines, and viral hashtags.

Dr. Hoshino is a typical case. Hoshino had been building her brand since mid 2020, focusing primarily on Instagram until March 2022, when Twitter began aggressively promoting her tweets such as the one shown below.  She describes herself in her Twitter bio as a board-certified pediatrician in Public Health and “vaccine expert.” Her posts depict a stylish young physician, exhausted from heroic work treating covid patients on the front lines.

 

Bayside clinic watered down vaccines to produce more inoculations

NY Daily News 

A Queens COVID-19 site systematically diluted vials of the life-saving Pfizer vaccine in order to dole out more doses, according to a new lawsuit filed by an employee claiming he was pushed out of the company after he started asking questions.

Jamie Zheng says Centers Urgent Care, the operator of the vaccine distribution site at Korean Community Services in Bayside, fired him after he learned of a policy to dilute the doses beyond the CDC’s recommendation.

“It makes me feel guilty,” said Zheng, 33, who ran the site from March to July of last year.

“Just thinking about the people waiting on line, mostly the Asian community. They were so excited. They want to get protected but in reality they’re getting a compromised dose.”

The CDC tells providers to mix a vial of Pfizer’s vaccine with 1.8 mL of a saline-based solution for adults. The lawsuit alleges Centers Urgent Care instructed distributors to mix with 1.9 mL, which allowed the company to squeeze seven shots out of each vial as opposed to six, the lawsuit claims.

Future deliveries of the vaccine from Pfizer were based on how many people the company had vaccinated in prior weeks, said Zheng, who sued in Queens Supreme Court .

Private providers who administer the shots are reimbursed for vaccinating individuals through insurance companies or Medicare.

Zheng is the second employee of Centers Urgent Care to sue over the alleged practice. Andrew Palazzo says in his suit filed last year that he was fired from his job administering the vaccines after raising similar objections as Zheng. He alleged 16,000 doses could have been diluted.

A court denied Palazzo’s bid last year for an order blocking the site from administering vaccines. Palazzo’s suit is ongoing and Centers Urgent Care has denied wrongdoing.

Meet the new public health boss, same as the old public health boss

The city's new smug asshole doctor

 

 NY Daily News

Mayor Adams’ newly minted health commissioner recommended Friday that the city should indefinitely maintain its mask mandate for kids younger than 5, striking a more cautious tone than his boss, who would prefer to scrap the restriction sooner rather than later.

Dr. Ashwin Vasan laid out the case for continued pandemic caution during a COVID-19 briefing in Queens, his first since taking over as the city’s health commissioner earlier this week.

The two primary coronavirus restrictions that remain in effect are the school mask mandate for kids younger than 5 and the vaccine mandate for the city’s private workforce — and Vasan said he believes neither of those requirements should be lifted anytime soon.

“I think it’s indefinite at this point,” Vasan said of the workforce mandate, which requires all private employees in the Big Apple to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. “People who have tried to predict what’s going to happen in the future in this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face, as they say, and I’m not going to do that here today.”

In terms of the mask mandate for kids younger than 5, Vasan offered a personal plea for why it shouldn’t be rescinded for the time being.

“I would love nothing more than to send my son to daycare without a mask,” said Vasan, whose kid is 4. “But as a scientist ... I want to keep him safe because he’s not eligible for a vaccine.”

 

The Key to NYC will die, the masks are coming off

 

NY Post

Vaccine passports will no longer be required in New York City starting March 7, Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday — and he plans on lifting school mask mandates then, too, barring “unforeseen spikes” in COVID cases.

Adams said he plans on following Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lead in nixing masks in schools but would make the final determination this Friday.

“At the end of this week, we will evaluate the numbers and make a final announcement on Friday. If we see no unforeseen spikes and our numbers continue to show a low level of risk, New York City will remove the indoor mask mandate for public school children,” Hizzoner said in a statement.

But he said starting March 7, patrons at Big Apple restaurants, gyms and indoor venues will no longer be required to show proof of vaccination.

“Additionally, New York City’s numbers continue to go down day after day, so, as long as COVID indicators show a low level of risk and we see no surprises this week, on Monday, March 7 we will also lift Key2NYC requirements,” the mayor said, referring to rules imposed last year by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio requiring proof of vaccination for indoor dining, indoor fitness, indoor entertainment and certain meeting spaces.

NY Post

Mask mandates in public schools across New York will be lifted this Wednesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Sunday — and she feels “confident” Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams will follow suit but said it’s ultimately up to him.

Speaking from Albany, Hochul said local governments would now be empowered to set their own school mask requirements in accordance with new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Friday that reclassified much of the state as “low risk” for COVID infection.

“Given the decline in our rates, our hospitalizations, strong vaccination rates and the CDC guidance, we, friends, the day has come,” Hochul said. “Today we are going to be announcing that we’ll be lifting the statewide mask requirement in schools, and that’ll be effective this Wednesday, March 2.”

Hochul said she had spoken to Mayor Eric Adams and “feels confident” he will follow her lead and yank the city’s school mask requirement, but declined to speak on his behalf.

“My position is to empower the local governments to make the decisions for their entire county. But I’ve always said that if there are entities within and we’re going to whether it’s a city, a school district and school if they choose to be more restrictive. We will not prohibit that whatsoever,” she said.

FDNY union leader believes forced vaccinations killed three firemen

 

NY Daily News 

An FDNY union leader wants the department to investigate whether three recent firefighter deaths resulted from city-mandated COVID-19 jabs.

The request from Uniformed Fire Officers Association President James McCarthy comes after the line-of-duty deaths of Lt. Joseph Maiello, 53, who was found dead in a Staten Island firehouse after a Christmas shift, and Firefighter Jesse Gerhard, 33, who died at his firehouse in Far Rockaway, Queens, after a medical episode Wednesday.

McCarthy wants the FDNY to include in its vaccine probe the death of Probationary Firefighter Vincent Malveaux, 31, who died Dec. 2 at the FDNY Training Academy on Randalls Island after suffering a medical episode believed to be a seizure.

“That’s a significant amount of people in a very short time,” said McCarthy. “The vaccine is a concern with our members because it is something new that is being put into our bodies. It could be a factor.”

McCarthy is asking the FDNY to provide the union with any information related to the fallen members’ COVID vaccine history, sources said.

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.

Ihr Kampf with mandate analogy

 

 QNS

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.”

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.

Contractors got the vaccine bribe and got paid for the wait to get their kids jabbed

Governor Kathy still thinks its the pandemic of the unvaccinated

 

NY Post

Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered offices, restaurants and shops statewide to require that staff and customers either show proof of vaccination or wear masks — or face a $1,000 fine per violation.

The new mandate on businesses — many of which are struggling to recover from pandemic lockdowns and battling workforce shortages — will take effect Monday and applies statewide.

Businesses that fail to enforce the rules could be subject to civil and criminal penalties, including a maximum fine of $1,000 for each violation.

It will remain in force until Jan. 15, when it could be extended, officials said. The governor’s office said local health departments will be in charge of enforcement.

“I speak all over the state and they’re asking for help. They’ve done everything they can, I applaud our local governments, our county executives, our county administrators and the local public health departments for doing what they can do,” Hochul told reporters after an unrelated event in Manhattan on Friday. “I said I’ll give them air cover, I will give them the protection.”

“This was completely avoidable — [a] completely avoidable circumstance,” the governor continued. “This is a crisis of the unvaccinated.”

Poor poor Kathy, poor stupid stupid Kathy. 

The Blaz now wants full vaccination status for participating in society

  

NY Daily News

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.

Hundreds of Rikers Island C.O.'s suspended following extortion mandate deadline

 

NY Post 

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.

 

C.O.'s will not comply to Blaz extortion mandate

NY Daily News 

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.”