Blas’ Mandate Madness
Mayor de Blasio socked New Yorkers with new vaccine mandates Monday, but make no mistake: The move had far less to do with stopping COVID — and more to do with promoting . . . de Blasio. The new orders, issued with just over three weeks left to the mayor’s term, require workers at the city’s 184,000 private businesses to show proof of vaccination by Dec. 27, just 20 days from now — and four days before he steps down. Kids as young as 5 (yes, five!) will need to be vaxxed by next Tuesday to enter indoor establishments and take part in extracurricular activities.
The 11th-hour ukases — plainly meant to appeal to the lockdown-left as Blas eyes a run for governor — will have serious consequences. Businesses may lose key workers who aren’t vaxxed, even those who work outdoors or who don’t spend much time in contact with others.
Employers surely face new, expensive administrative headaches (though the mayor has yet to work out the details, including penalties for non-compliance).
Business leaders are understandably furious: They got “no forewarning, no discussion,” fumes Partnership for NYC head Kathryn Wylde. “We were blindsided.” She and others also question the mandate’s legality, especially since the courts halted President Biden’s similar vax mandates for private workers.
The kicker: The new mandates are wholly unnecessary. The number of Gotham adults who’ve been exposed to COVID or had at least one jab is nearing 100 percent. The city’s COVID death rate has hovered around six a day — or about 0.00007 percent of the population.
The mayor cites the Omicron variant as a new development, but Omicron’s impact so far has been mild to nonexistent.
Nor is it clear where Mayor-Elect Eric Adams stands on such mandates: He may well wind up lifting them when he takes office, four days after they go into effect.
It’s typical de Blasio. Everything he does is about him — to hell with the consequences for everyone else.
Yes, the city’s free of his “leadership” in three weeks. But he keeps proving himself determined to inflict damage while he still can.