Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser appears not to be enforcing the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
Six weeks have passed since the deadline for all city firefighters and medical workers to be vaccinated.
At least 300 emergency medical services workers and firefighters and 2,000 licensed healthcare workers reportedly remain unvaccinated.
Roughly 261 of the former and 1,571 of the latter have requested religious exemptions to the vaccine, according to the report.
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The city’s health metrics are in phase 3, a “green” phase, according to the district.
Bowser, a Democrat, had been adamant about the Oct. 1 deadline, but a spokesperson for the mayor said there is no timeline for when unvaccinated workers could be fired or lose their licenses.
“The deadline was Oct. 1, and we haven’t heard anything one way or another since then,” said Will Jones, a firefighter requesting a religious exemption.
Receiving a religious exemption has been no easy task in Washington, and the district has not given one for the workers at risk of losing their jobs, according to reports.
“At the end of the day, we need to have a say in what goes into your body and being able to make that decision on your own,” Jones said.
Many city employees, including police, are not required to follow the vaccine mandate and can instead submit to regular testing, but healthcare and fire employees are not given that same option.
Submitting tests is no problem for Jones, and he said the city would suffer if it fired 300 firefighters.
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“We’re already working mandatory overtime as it is fully staffed,” he said. “I was on a call the other day. I had a young child unconscious in my arms waiting for a medic unit to come from across the city to where we work.”
