Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) sounded the alarm on Monday’s deadline in New York City requiring city workers to have at least one dosage of a COVID-19 vaccine.
The mandate will reportedly cause New York City to suffer from a shortage of firefighters and EMS workers.
During Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” Stefanik called the mandate “unconstitutional” and cautioned that forcing first responders out of their jobs “makes New York less safe.”
“It’s not going to work,” Stefanik said of the mandate’s effect on the shortage of first responders. “New York has already faced a crime crisis this past year, and when we think about the front line workers, the first responders who put their lives and health on the line serving New Yorkers during the COVID pandemic, now to penalize them when we already have historic numbers of retirement — there was news about the number of fire departments that are not able to respond in the same timely fashion than they typically would be. Certain fire department companies are closing in New York City.”
“The vaccine mandates are unconstitutional, and again, it’s exacerbating an already tenuous situation as we face a labor shortage with first responders and law enforcement officers across the country. So, it makes New York less safe,” she concluded.
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