New York vaccine mandate on businesses takes effect

In-person workers in NYC must be vaccinated
(Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday launched the nation's broadest vaccine mandate on private businesses. Under the policy, all employers in the city must verify that in-person workers have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine. If in-person workers got the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, they must provide proof they got the second dose within 45 days.

De Blasio, who is in his last week as mayor, said he was "110 percent convinced this was the right thing to do," The New York Times reports. Nearly 72 percent of New Yorkers were fully vaccinated as of Monday, with over 80 percent having received at least one dose of a vaccine.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.