New York City officials have not enforced the city’s vaccine mandate for private businesses, a major change that appears to be due to NYC Mayor Eric Adams.
While the city maintained a strict approach to COVID-19 vaccine mandates for private businesses under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, Adams’s administration has not emphasized this particular mandate and has reportedly not fined anyone since he took over in January 2022.
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“We have been focused on prioritizing education instead of enforcement when it comes to the private sector mandate, which is how we’ve been able to get more than 87 percent of all New Yorkers with their first dose to date,” Adams’s spokesman Fabien Levy told the New York Times.
While De Blasio said in the final days of his administration that he would have city officials investigate businesses for compliance with the vaccine mandate, he also threatened to fine the businesses $1,000 for not complying. A Dec. 27-31, 2021, investigation found that only 31% of 3,025 New York City businesses complied with the mandate, a concerning number at the time.
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Neither De Blasio nor Adams actually fined businesses, Levy told Newsday. De Blasio’s threat was one of the most far-reaching local measures during the pandemic and applied to more than 184,000 businesses in the New York City area. While private companies were not fined, the city was more stringent with public employees. Multiple public employees in law enforcement and the fire department were fired due to their unwillingness to get vaccinated.
At least 91% of the city’s population has received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 78% are fully vaccinated.
