New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams (D) announced Thursday that he will keep in place the city’s private-sector coronavirus vaccine mandate.
Adams confirmed his plan regarding the mandate during a press conference addressing his incoming administration’s strategy to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The New York Daily News reported:
The private sector mandate — which took effect Monday and was devised by Mayor de Blasio — is an “imperative” weapon in fighting back against a recent explosion of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations in the city driven by the omicron variant, Adams said in a briefing with health advisers at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
“I am going to really expand on the communication and education. I don’t believe we need to be heavy-handed with our businesses. COVID has been heavy-handed enough,” Adams told reporters.
He added:
What we are doing now by speaking with our large businesses and our small businesses, we’re going to receive the level of cooperation we need to ensure that we get the compliance that we need. And I believe, if there was one critique, as I stated, I think that the mayor in a state of urgency with which he was faced — we could’ve all done a better job at communicating with our various stakeholders.
Adams’ remarks came after New York state said it registered a single-day record of 74,000 positive tests.
U.S. cases have reached a fresh record of over 265,000 per day on average, mainly due to the omicron variant.