Mayor Mandates Vaccination of all Teachers and School Staff: No Weekly Testing Option

      by Yehudit Garmaise

     Today Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order and the city’s Health Commissioner Dave A. Chokshi, MD, did the same that requires of New York City teachers and all school staff, only 60% of which have already gotten their shots, will be required to show proof of their first vaccination dose by Sept. 27: a mandate that will put New York City at the forefront of other large American cities in terms of protecting teachers and students from COVID. 

     “We are going to benefit from being one of the most vaccinated cities in the country,” the mayor said today. "Everyone understands we are in a crisis, and vaccination is the answer. We need to provide a safe environment for our children."

      Unlike city workers and healthcare workers, teachers and school staff who do not want to get vaccinated will not be given the option to submit to weekly testing for COVID.

     As COVID rates continue to climb once more, due the delta variant and lagging vaccination rates, the mayor is hoping to protect the city’s teachers and school staff before public schools welcome back students on Sept. 13.

     In an effort to get shots in the arms of more 12 to 18-year-olds, who although they are eligible to get vaccinated, only 43% of whom have been vaccinated, the mayor and his top physicians also encouraged parents and teens to consider the COVID vaccination as one of the many things families do to prepare to send their children back to school in the fall, in a program called, “Vax to School.”

     The vaccine remains unavailable for children under age 12.

     Antonio Reynoso, who is the newly elected borough president of Brooklyn, said that he thought that now was the time for some “New York City tough love,” to ensure the safety of all the city’s teachers, staffs, and students.

    “This is about what we need to do to bring back New York City. This is about keeping people safe,” said Mayor de Blasio, who said he has already begun speaking with labor unions, and he will continue to do so in the coming days to hammer out the specifics, methods, and concerns of how the city will vaccinate the city’s school staffs by Sept. 27. 

     The mayor also was thrilled that today was the day that the US Food and Drug Association announced its full approval of the Pfizer vaccine.

     “The announcement couldn’t come on a better day,” the mayor said. “This will only strengthen our mandate.

     “We want to say goodbye to delta forever, and with the vaccines, we have the tools to do it.”

      When the mayor was asked whether he feared a large number of teachers resigning as a result of this mandate, the mayor did not seem worried, and he said that we would see a high rate of vaccination compliance among teachers.

     “Teachers cherish their work, and many teachers want to work in the New York City school system, partly because of their salaries,” the mayor said.

      “I do not expect a staffing shortage,” said Meisha Ross-Porter, the city’s schools chancellor. “Our teachers have been heroes throughout this whole pandemic, and this is the next way to get our babies back in class and to keep them protected and safe.”

     Many times, the mayor’s top physicians have said that the protection the vaccine provides against infection, hospitalization, and death far outweighs the protection that masks or anything else could provide.

      In fact, Dave Chokshi, MD, the city’s health commissioner said that vaccination makes people 20 times less likely to die from COVID.

      Motivating the mayor’s vaccination mandate is the reality that the more transmissible delta variant is spreading quite quickly: largely among the unvaccinated.

      Another wave of spiking COVID rates threaten to disrupt the third school year in a row. City data show, Chalkbeat reported that out of 13,000 summer school sites across the city, 127 classrooms had to close.

     Also in the background of the mayor’s push to boost vaccination rates in schools is his insistence that, unlike last year, in which many public school students, parents, and teachers have reported that not much was gained from remote learning on Zoom, in the fall, schools will only be open for in-person instruction: with no option to learn remotely.

     Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who will be sworn in as New York’s governor tomorrow, has said that given the virulence of the delta variant, she is considering a mask mandate for students and teachers in schools.