Political | Process

The mandate applies to in-person employees who are in a workplace with other co-workers, de Blasio said during a news conference Monday.

Tweet

• New York has identified eight cases of the omicron variant as of the weekend, seven in the New York City area and one in Suffolk County on Long Island.

• The mandate covers 184,000 businesses and will go into effect on Dec. 27, and it doesn’t give unvaccinated employees the option to get tested regularly, de Blasio said.

• They must have at least one dose by that date. The policy applies to in-person employees who are in a workplace with other co-workers, de Blasio said during a news conference Monday.

• The city will publish guidelines on Dec. 15 to provide more information on implementation and enforcement, de Blasio said. The outgoing mayor said he has spoken with Mayor-elect Eric Adams about the policy.

• “We’ve got omicron as a new factor, we’ve got the colder weather, which is really going to create additional challenges with the delta variant, we’ve got holiday gatherings,” de Blasio told MSNBC earlier Monday morning.

• “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 New York City policy comes after the Biden administration was forced to halt implementation and enforcement of national vaccine and testing requirements for businesses with 100 or more employees to comply with a federal court order.

• “The commissioner of health has the authority to issue a mandate like this to protect the public health and his authority to do that has been upheld time and again,” Georgia Pestana, the city’s corporation counsel, said during the news conference with de Blasio. “The trouble that the Biden administration has run into in court doesn’t really apply here.”

SOURCE: CNBC