New York lets unvaxxed athletes play, clearing way for Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn
New York City’s mayor has announced that he’s exempting athletes and performers from the city’s vaccine mandate for private workers, a move that will allow Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving to play home games and unvaccinated baseball players to take the field when their season begins.
Mayor Eric Adams made the announcement on Thursday morning and the policy will be effective immediately.
The city’s sweeping vaccine mandate for workers will still apply to people with other types of jobs, including government employees.
“I’m going to make some tough choices. People are not going to agree with some of them,” Adams said on Thursday. “I must move this city forward.”
Adams had said he felt the vaccine rule was unfair when it came to athletes and performers because a loophole in the measure, imposed under his predecessor, allowed visiting players and performers who don’t work in New York to still play or perform even if they are unvaccinated.
Irving, a vaccine holdout, had been among the most high-profile people impacted. He was able to rejoin the team in January but only when they played out of town games. It led to the strange sight of the All-Star being able to attend Nets home games as a fan, but not as a player.
This month, concerns had been raised that the rule would also impact Major League Baseball, with it applying at the home stadiums of the New York Mets and Yankees. Several players from each team are understood to be unvaccinated and would have been unable to play home games.
Adams has been rolling back vaccine mandates and other coronavirus restrictions, including on Tuesday when he said masks could become optional for children under 5 starting 4 April.
Mask mandates for older children have already been removed, as well as rules requiring people to show proof of vaccination to dine in a restaurant, work out at a gym or attend a show or go to an indoor sporting event.