Supreme Court Decision Doesn’t Change Local Rule – NBC New York


New York City’s health commissioner on Friday blasted the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the president’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate as “misguided” and sought to make one point extremely clear: The city’s private-sector rule is still in effect.

Dr. Dave Chokshi, who is keeping his role until March as part of Mayor Eric Adams’ transition plan, tweeted that he was dismayed by Thursday’s high court decision, which blocked Joe Biden’s all-encompassing private-sector vaccine mandate but allowed a version of the rule applicable to most U.S. healthcare workers to stand.

“The health and safety of all Americans should be paramount, especially in the middle of a pandemic,” Chokshi tweeted Friday. “In NYC, our vaccine requirements — including our private-sector mandate — remain in effect, and highlight how vital local public health efforts are.”

New York City’s private-sector vaccine mandate applies to roughly 184,000 businesses and has one critically different component compared with the one Biden’s administration tried to introduce: There is no weekly test-out option.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his intent to implement the rule in early December, well before the worst of the omicron surge set upon the city but perhaps after healthcare officials and experts already had an idea of what was to come.

The mandate took effect on Dec. 27, and Adams made it clear on the eve of his mayoral swearing-in that he intended to keep it in place in his administration.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced major new expansions to the vaccine mandate, on Monday. Andrew Siff reports.

De Blasio had billed the measure as the “strictest” vaccine mandate in the nation as he announced his plans in early December, and vowed it would hold up in courts despite questions from reporters, critics and key stakeholders about its viability.

At the time, the then-mayor turned those questions over to his corporate counsel, Georgia Pestana, who said responsibility for enforcement and implementation of New York City’s mandate was the key difference between de Blasio’s rule versus Biden’s and the prime reason it would stand up in the court system.

The city’s mandate, as Pestana and de Blasio pointed out, came from the city health commissioner, who both said has a legal right to enact such orders when there is a significant threat, credible, perceived or otherwise, against public health. The threat of omicron would only become clearer over the course of that month.

In Biden’s case, there were questions about the legal authority of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to manage one mandate, and of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to manage another, Pestana said.

Thursday’s Supreme Court decision comes amid an omicron surge unprecedented for the speed at which it dominated American COVID cases and for its ability to infect more fully vaccinated people more adeptly than any other variant has done.

In a comprehensive report New York City’s health department report released late Thursday, officials said it took omicron only five weeks to dominate cases across the five boroughs once it was detected. It took delta…



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