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New York City will require every Department of Education employee – including teachers, principals, guards and all central office staff – to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by now September 27, without the possibility of undergoing weekly tests.
The new, stricter mandate, which will be announced Monday, will affect some 148,000 City employees. This is an escalation in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to slow the spread of the Delta variant by vaccinating more of the city’s residents.
Education staff are the first group of municipal workers to face a full vaccination mandate. The announcement also opens the door to a broader vaccine mandate from city workers. Last month, Mr de Blasio issued a warrant for municipal workers that allowed unvaccinated people to undergo weekly coronavirus tests.
Mr de Blasio’s push is likely to be unpopular with some DOE employees, but is supported by the city’s powerful teachers’ union. The city is still negotiating with the United Teachers’ Federation over what will happen to staff members who fail to meet the mandate.
The mayor’s announcement will certainly be supported by the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Monday.
New York City will join Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago, which have all announced full immunization mandates for teachers in recent weeks.
The fact that all teachers and staff at the city’s 1,800 public schools will now need to be fully immunized will likely reassure many parents who fear sending their children back to classrooms next month.
Mr de Blasio insisted that all students would return to school in person on September 13. But with three weeks until the first day of school, he has yet to say how the city will handle testing or quarantining positive cases. case, a delay which has deeply frustrated parents and educators. The city does not offer a distance learning option.
The precise percentage of teachers who have been vaccinated is still unknown. City officials said more than 63% of all Education Department employees were vaccinated, but said their numbers did not include employees who were vaccinated outside New Town. York. About 75 percent of teachers who live in New York City have received at least one dose. In contrast, only about 43 percent of police department employees have been vaccinated.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the UFT, estimated that 70 or even 80% of its members are vaccinated, regardless of where they live, but his union also lacks definitive figures. The new mandate will end the guessing game.
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