NYC Private Sector COVID Vaccine Mandate Will End Nov. 1, Adams Says

NEW YORK CITY — Workers in New York City's businesses no longer will be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday.

Adams announced the city's private sector vaccination mandate will end Nov. 1. He said businesses still will be strongly urged to encourage their workers to get the vaccine and set their own policies.

“This puts the choice in the hands of New York businesses,” he said. “It is imperative that we continue to encourage them to ask employees to get their vaccines and booster shots.”

But Adams said the city's public sector mandate — which covers police officers, firefighters, teachers and all other city employees — doesn't yet have an end date.

“Right now, that is not on the radar for us,” he said.

Health officials are ending the private sector mandate, along with a similar vaccination requirement for high school sports, as COVID-19 cases fall and life is steadily returning to some form of pre-pandemic normal.

The mandates were put in place last year by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to encourage widespread vaccination — a goal he argued was critical for the city's pandemic recovery.

And the requirements worked — 89 percent of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose of vaccine.

Now, city officials are rolling out a campaign to encourage New Yorkers to get the bivalent booster — a shot crafted to provide extra protection against coronavirus variants. Adams received his shot after he made the mandate announcement.

The booster, which is encouraged for all New Yorkers 12 and up, largely will be distributed at pharmacies and physicians' offices, rather than city-run sites.

Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan said ending the private sector mandate, but keeping the private sector one, shouldn't be viewed in isolation. He said the city is going through a transition.

“We’re no longer in this emergency phase of the pandemic, but we haven’t yet defined what the new normal looks like,” he said.

But the keeping the public mandate drew a caustic response from Patrick Lynch, who heads the powerful Police Benevolent Association union that has long-fought against it.

“This announcement is more proof that the vaccine mandate for New York City police officers is arbitrary, capricious, and fundamentally irrational," he said in a statement. "Now that the city has abandoned any pretense of a public health justification for vaccine mandates, we expect it to settle our pending lawsuits and reinstate with back pay our members who unjustly lost their jobs.”