NYC SETS recall of city workers.

May 3 date inked in as municipality seeks to signal a return soon to normal life

NEW YORK — With virus cases seeming to stabilize and vaccinations becoming more widespread, New York City officials intend to send a message that the state is close to returning to normal: On May 3, the city will compel its municipal office employees to begin to report to work in person.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to send the nation’s largest municipal workforce back to the office represents a significant turnabout for a city that served as the national epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.

The move is meant to broadcast that New York City soon will be open for business, and to encourage private companies to follow suit — lifting the hopes of landlords whose skyscrapers have sat empty as office workers stayed home.

“We’re going to make it safe, but we need our city workers back in their offices where they can do the most to help their fellow New Yorkers,” de Blasio said Tuesday. “And it’s also going to send a powerful message about this city moving forward.”

Yet the move by the city still has sparked concern among some workers and union leaders who fear the return to the office is premature. New York City has among the highest coronavirus case rates in the nation. Many workers will have to commute an hour or more on mass transit. Others will have to juggle their children’s episodic in-person school schedules with their new in-person work requirements.

The new policy in New York, which will be rolled out in phases over several weeks, will affect about 80,000 employees who have been working remotely, including caseworkers, computer specialists and clerical associates. The rest of the city’s roughly 300,000-person workforce, many of them uniformed personnel including police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers, have already been reporting to work sites.

Vaccination will not be mandatory for those returning to the office because of legal concerns, according to a City Hall spokesman. City officials are strongly encouraging their workers to get vaccinated and are trying to facilitate that process.

Masks also will be strongly encouraged but not required in all workplace situations.

Meanwhile, Texas is becoming the most populous state to expand covid-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults, more than a month before President Joe Biden’s goal of making the shots available to anyone who wants one by May 1.

The announcement by state health officials Tuesday adds Texas to the rapidly growing list of states that are making vaccinations available to all adults. The expansion for the state’s nearly 30 million residents will begin Monday.

“We are closing in on 10 million doses administered in Texas, and we want to keep up the momentum as the vaccine supply increases,” said Imelda Garcia, chairwoman of the state’s Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel.

For the past two weeks, Texas has been the nation’s largest state with no coronavirus restrictions after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott repealed a mask mandate that has divided businesses and lifted limits on restaurant and retail occupancy. Hospitalizations in Texas have plummeted to their lowest levels since October, but local health officials say they are again watching the numbers closely after spring break last week.

Oklahoma is also joining states that will offer the coronavirus shots to all adults, deputy state health commissioner Keith Reed said Tuesday.

The health department will begin making appointments Monday for an estimated 500,000 people not yet eligible to register for the shots, Reed said.

“If you are over 16 and live in Oklahoma you are eligible and should get vaccinated,” Reed said, noting that only the Pfizer vaccine is approved for 16- and 17-yearolds. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are approved for those 18 and older.

More than 1.6 million shots have been administered in the state, Reed said, including more than 586,000 who have received the full dosage, but continued vaccinations is key to controlling the pandemic. Oklahoma has a population of nearly 4 million.

Alaska was the first state to open up vaccination eligibility to all adults and states including Tennessee and Missouri are following suit.