Delta Variant Causes COVID Cases in NYC to Surpass 1,000 for First Time in Months

By Yehudit Garmaise

     The contagious Delta variant has caused the number of new COVID cases in New York City to surpass 1,000, for the first time in months.

     “If everyone were vaccinated right now, we would not be having a conversation about the Delta variant,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said this morning on the Brian Lehrer Show. “The problem is: as the president has said, the CDC director said: this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

      “And we've got to reach people.”

     In addition to making vaccination easy, free, and accessible for almost eight months in countless ways in New York City, this week, for the first time, the mayor, announced that he will be requiring healthcare workers who work at the city’s public hospitals to get vaccinated or they will be required to submit to weekly COVID tests.

     Yesterday, after the mayor announced the mandatory vaccination for the city’s healthcare workers at public hospitals, starting on Aug. 2, a reporter asked him about “the thousands of police officers, firefighters, emergency medical service providers, who have been exposed [to COVID] in the uniform services,” and who are refusing vaccination because they feel their immunity from COVID’s antibodies are sufficient protection from the Delta variant.

     The mayor responded unusually sharply to this question when he said, “When did everyone get a medical degree? I'm sick of everyone armchair-saying that they know more than the doctors, who have been protecting you and saving the lives of your family and your community.

    “[The doctors] have been telling you with one voice: Get vaccinated.” 

    Today, the mayor further strengthened his idea to mandate vaccination New York City’s healthcare workers when he said, “You're going to see more of these kinds of mandates.

    “And I think the private sector is going to follow suit,” he said. “I think private hospital systems, I think private employers are going to follow suit. And this is the thing that I think could actually save us.”

     “Let's get real.

     “People had every chance to do it the nice way. Now it's time to be more assertive because anyone who doesn't get vaccinated is putting other people in danger.

      “I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm just saying a fact: they're putting other people in danger. It's got to end.”

 (Darren McGee- Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)