new York First it was the 75,000 teachers in New York public schools, then it was the turn of all municipal employees from garbage disposal to fire departments. And now it’s the turn of the employees of private companies: They all have to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by December 27 if they don’t want to lose their jobs.
This makes New York the first US city to introduce mandatory vaccination for all employees. A total of 184,000 companies are affected by the rules. In addition, children between the ages of five and eleven will soon have to show their vaccination certificate if they want to eat in restaurants or do sports indoors. In the United States, children under twelve have been able to get vaccinated since mid-November.
New York is in the spotlight in particular: the city was one of the worst hotspots in the world at the beginning of the pandemic. Among other things, it was the pictures of corpses in refrigerated trucks that left lasting memories.
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Later, however, the metropolis took extremely consistent action against the virus, so that – unlike in large parts of the USA – a massive recurrence of the pandemic was prevented.
A mix of personal responsibility, rules and careful opening has allowed New York, for example, as the only major city in the USA to reopen the schools in the largest school district in the USA as early as autumn 2020, initially hybrid and later completely. More than 70 percent of the population have been vaccinated at least twice.
With 8.5 million inhabitants, New York has almost as many inhabitants as Switzerland. People live together in a confined space: ideal conditions for viruses to spread. Now de Blasio wants to prevent a new wave of Covid from sweeping through the city with Omikron, especially since the Christmas holidays are a risk factor. Therefore, all employees of private companies should be vaccinated.
De Blasio goes further with vaccination mandate than Joe Biden
With this, the mayor is going further than US President Joe Biden, who actually decided on a vaccination mandate for all companies with more than 100 employees from January 4th. However, this regulation is currently on hold because individual states have sued against it.
Especially small companies, which already have problems finding employees on the tense labor market, criticize de Blasio’s latest decision.
Andrew Rigie, director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, which represents the restaurants, is particularly critical of the early vaccination certificate for children because it could deter tourists whose children have not yet been vaccinated. “In view of the upcoming holidays, this should be postponed until next year,” said Rigie.
Mark Levine, the city’s former health councilor and President-elect of Manhattan, is ignoring the concerns of restaurant owners. He argues that the bars are booming at the moment precisely because people felt safe thanks to the strict vaccine policy.
New York’s outgoing mayor has earned respect for his handling of the pandemic.
(Photo: AP)
Levine, himself a Democrat, has often criticized de Blasio in the past, but praises his vaccination regulations. “That saved us from the worst this summer and early autumn and thus positioned us better for the winter wave,” says Levine.
Kathryn Wylde, president of the powerful business association “Partnership for New York”, was surprised by de Blasio’s approach and warned of “more stress, more tension” for companies. According to a survey by the association, half of New York companies have introduced compulsory vaccination, 39 percent have employees choosing between vaccination and testing, and eleven percent have no guidelines at all.
Many corporations have long had a compulsory vaccination
For large companies, however, little will change. Most of them introduced their own compulsory vaccination months ago – without any orders from the government. New York’s big banks like Citi or Goldman Sachs, but also Google or the department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue have strict rules: only vaccinated people are allowed to return to the office.
In contrast to Germany, many companies in the USA do not wait for the government to regulate themselves, but rather oblige their employees to have themselves vaccinated or tested.
For example, the meat giant Tyson Foods introduced compulsory vaccinations back in August. The company was criticized at the beginning of the pandemic because its employees were infected with Covid-19 in rows and more than three dozen died from the disease.
Today the world’s largest meat processing company is the pioneer of the vaccination mandate. 96 percent of its 120,000 employees are vaccinated. In order to convince the employees, doctors from different cultural backgrounds and languages provided information about the vaccine. Since then, more than 60,000 employees who previously had doubts have been vaccinated.
At the Amtrak railway company, the 17,500 employees have had to be fully vaccinated since the beginning of November or have themselves tested weekly. All 56,000 US employees at General Electric (GE) also have to be vaccinated. Lufthansa partner United Airlines was the first US airline to introduce mandatory vaccinations in the summer of its own accord.
The city employees in New York were already on it in the summer. There New York first introduced a “vaccination or testing” rule and later made the vaccine mandatory.
Now it is the turn of the private employees and the children. In order to also vaccinate the younger ones between five and eleven years of age, the vaccination buses drove up to public schools. For each “shot” there were also vouchers for rental bicycles or a visit to the Statue of Liberty worth $ 100.
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