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Yet, Janey said, “vaccine passports” for public places remain a non-starter in Boston.
“If vaccine passports were imposed today with a government mandate to ban [unvaccinated] residents of places like restaurants or gyms, that would exclude almost 40% of East Boston and 60% of Mattapan, ”Janey said. “Instead of excluding people, excluding our neighbors who are disproportionately poor people of color, we are knocking on their doors to build trust and expand access to life-saving vaccines. “
She highlighted the measures taken by the city to increase vaccinations.
“We have put in place a mask mandate for our schools, and now we are working with our municipal unions towards a vaccine mandate” for the city’s workforce, Janey said at a press conference in City Hall. “We are actively working on a mandate for vaccine or regular testing for all employees in the city of Boston.”
A vaccination warrant for city workers could present complications, according to legal experts, who noted that there would likely be a need for exemptions for people whose religious beliefs conflict with vaccination, those who are immunocompromised and those who are pregnant. . If these exclusions do not exist, there would be a risk of litigation.
Janey said the city would have a “rigorous testing program” in place to protect the workforce if there were unvaccinated employees “due to religious beliefs or other factors.”
“The goal, however, is to have all of our city employees vaccinated. This is, again, the best protection against this deadly virus. And you should not play with the Delta variant, ”she added.
Janey said 90 percent of the city’s workforce is unionized and her administration has reached out to relevant working groups, adding that establishing a vaccination and screening program for school staff and others working with unvaccinated populations remains a top priority. She said she would have more news to share on this front next week.
“We take a very worker-centered approach,” she said.
Janey is in the middle of an increasingly tense mayoral race that presents four other major candidates, and her handling of the pandemic is underway closely watched by its political opponents.
Indeed, on Wednesday, Councilor Andrea Campbell, who is also a mayoral candidate, tore up Janey’s handling of the public health emergency, saying it “is taking too long” to implement a vaccine mandate. and testing for the city’s workforce.
With the continued spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, authorities in New York and California have imposed vaccine and testing regimes on their government workforces. Likewise, millions of federal workers are also subject to sweeping new pandemic measures aimed at increasing vaccination rates.
Boston has not yet taken such a step.
And Janey has been hesitant to take action similar to the requirements to prove you have a vaccine to enter New York, whose new rules come into effect on August 16.
In her first comments Tuesday on New York’s demands, Janey said she thought it would be “difficult to enforce.”
“There’s a long history in this country of people needing to show their papers if we’re talking about this from the point of view of, you know as a way to, after, during slavery, after slavery, ”Janey said then, according to WCVB audio. “As recent as, you know, what the immigrant population has to go through here. We heard from Trump with the birth certificate nonsense.
(Before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, he publicly fueled false rumors and fueled conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s birthplace.)
Political opponents took to Janey’s comments, with Campbell calling them “absolutely ridiculous” and mayoral candidate John Barros calling them “misleading rhetoric.”
Janey’s opposition to a vaccine proof warrant for restaurants and gyms puts her at odds with other city lawmakers, including Campbell, fellow councilor and mayoral candidate Michelle Wu, and council chairman Municipal Pro Tempore Matt O’Malley.
O’Malley has previously asked all board staff in person to present proof of vaccination or a weekly COVID-19 test starting August 30, which would affect more than 100 workers. Additionally, hospitals, some nursing homes, and many private colleges and universities in Massachusetts require vaccines for their employees.
Officials in Cambridge, Provincetown and Nantucket last month urged residents and visitors to wear masks in indoor public spaces as new outbreaks were reported. And Janey has already made an important decision on masking, previously claiming that 50,000 Boston public school students will be required to wear masks when they return to class in the fall.
A June poll conducted by Suffolk University and the Boston Globe showed Wu and Janey ahead of the rest of the field in the Boston mayoral race. In the poll, Wu garnered 23.4% support, Janey 21.6% and councilor Annissa Essaibi George 14.4%, while Campbell 10.8%. Barros, the city’s former economic development chief, polled less than 2%.
The preliminary election will take place on September 14. The first two voters in this contest will go to the general election on November 2.
Danny McDonald can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @Danny__McDonald. Travis Andersen can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @TAGlobe.
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