Mayor Eric Adams exempted athletes and performers from the city’s vaccine mandate following weeks of pressure from the sports world after the rule kept Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving from playing in home games and was expected to block several baseball players from taking the field in their upcoming season.
Speaking at Citi Field and joined by executives of both the Mets and Yankees, Adams said Thursday that he has signed the order. The exemption was effective immediately.
“Being healthy is not just about being physically healthy, but being economically healthy,” Adams said. “This is about putting New York City-based performers on a level field.
“I’m going to make some tough choices. People are not going to agree with some of them.” Adams prefaced. “I must move this city forward.”
The city’s sweeping vaccine mandate for workers will still apply to people with other types of jobs, including private workers and government employees.
Critics of the mayor’s decision, including several public employee unions whose members were fired for refusing to get vaccinated, blasted the mayor for seeming to lift the rule only for wealthy and famous athletes.
“There can’t be one system for the elite and another for the essential workers of our city,” said Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association and chair of the umbrella Municipal Labor Committee.
Nespoli also invoked the 1,400-plus city employees who were fired for refusing to get jabbed, saying: “There should be a reentry program for workers to get their jobs back.”
“When New York City shut down, many workers were mandated to come in every day without vaccines to keep the city running,” he said.
“These workers often got sick, and when they got better, came right back to work.”
The head of the NYPD Detectives’ Endowment Union, Paul DiGiacomo, said Adams’ move “doesn’t make sense.”
“The objective, scientific findings do not support giving athletes one option and New York City detectives another option,” he said.
“This vaccine mandate is being done in the middle of a crime wave. We are losing experienced detectives in the homicide squad, precinct squads. The only losers are the people of New York.”
Patrick Lynch, president of the 24,000-member Police Benevolent Association, said, “We have been suing the city for months over its arbitrary and capricious vaccine mandate — this is exactly what we are talking about.”
“If the mandate isn’t necessary for famous people, then it’s not necessary for the cops who are protecting our city in the middle of a crime crisis,” he said in a prepared statement.
“While celebrities were in lockdown, New York City police officers were on the street throughout the pandemic, working without adequate PPE and in many cases contracting and recovering from Covid themselves. They don’t deserve to be treated like second-class citizens now.”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Andrew Giuliani and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa also announced a preemptive news conference outside the entrance to Citi Field, 45 minutes before Adams was scheduled to speak there.
“In 2020, we saw the very best of New York in our first responders, essential workers and teachers. In response, they’ve now been told by two governors and two mayors to take the shot or lose their job,” Giuliani said in a statement.
“It’s time to right those wrongs by ending all mandates, reinstating these heroes, and giving them back pay. The freedom to make personal health decisions shouldn’t only be the right of athletes and performers.”
