The New York authorities want to put an end to the last strongholds of recalcitrant against covid-19 vaccines, at least among their officials, and today the last deadline given to public education workers to inoculate themselves with the vaccine expires today. they want to go back to work.
However, those who oppose the authorities’ mandate, as is the case in other parts of the country, have launched a legal campaign to try to reverse the situation and have their right not to be vaccinated recognized.
“Our case continues its course in the Supreme Court and we continue to fight on behalf of our members,” Henry Garrido, the executive director of “Distrit Council 37”, the largest union of public officials in New York City, told EFE. is fighting for the City Council to withdraw its ultimatum.
The vaccination order has been halted on a couple of occasions while the courts studied the lawsuit, but so far, the judges have leaned in favor of the obligation to be vaccinated.
In a written message, Garrido clarified that, from his organization, they encourage their members to get vaccinated, although he considers that imposing the vaccine by force “is not the solution” and proposes, for example, that schools do “weekly tests, if they really want everyone to be safe. “
ECONOMIC INCENTIVES FOR VACCINES
How could it be otherwise, the mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, defends the measure in a city that became the greatest focus of the disease during the spring of 2019 and that for a long time topped the list of deaths, with more than 55,000 today.
Since the imposition of the mandate was first announced on July 21, “the average number of vaccinations per day increased by 45 percent, which means 1,300,000 more doses, a great impact to save lives”, De Blasio said at a press conference on September 28, insisting that 70% of New Yorkers have received at least one dose.
Following initial success at the start of the citywide immunization campaign earlier in the year, the cadence slowed over the months, prompting authorities to offer financial incentives.
From free train tickets, to competitions to achieve full university scholarships, to paying $ 100 or many other offers also launched by the private sector, everything was good to increase the vaccination rate.
“If you are an employee of the Department of Education, you have until Friday at five in the afternoon to, at least, receive a first dose, the vast majority have already done so,” said the mayor before warning that those who do not do “after all the encouragement, all the support and all the incentives, we will assume you will not come to work on Monday morning.”
Today he tried to remove iron from the problems that the recalcitrant anti-vaccines (10% of all Education employees) can create in the school system, arguing that the city has enough substitutes not to hinder the school year.
According to the authorities, people who have not been vaccinated will not lose their job for the time being, but will not return until they are immunized and will not be charged for the days not worked. Education, another ultimatum expired last Monday, the one given to the almost 50,000 public employees of the health sector in New York City, where around 5,000 had not received any punctures.
The director of the New York Health and Hospital System, Mitchell Katz, assured that it had been necessary to hire 500 nurses to replace those who had chosen not to inoculate the vaccine.
LAST DEMONSTRATION OF ANTIVACCINE FORCE
Several hundred people marched through the streets of New York, on September 27, shouting “We will not comply” or “My body, my choice” in a last attempt to get the authorities and numerous companies that are in tune with the official measures reverse your pressure on the unvaccinated.
With messages such as “It is not a vaccine, it is an experimental drug”, the protesters marched through several streets and avenues of the central Manhattan neighborhood.
Among those who reject the vaccine, they have positioned themselves -both in New York, as in other states- from far-right movements that adopted the fight against punctures and masks as a political principle, to part of the black community, who view the measures with suspicion. from the authorities, as Hawk Newsome, a prominent New York activist from the anti-racist movement “Black Lives Matter,” recently made public.
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