Roughly 3% of workers statewide at hospitals, nursing homes, home health care agencies and adult care facilities were forced from their jobs after declining to comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday.
Meanwhile, at a wide-ranging news conference in Manhattan, Hochul announced that her administration was filing an appeal to the Second Circuit following a “disappointing” ruling Tuesday that indefinitely extended a preliminary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the mandate on health care staff citing religious exceptions.
The ruling, by Judge David Hurd of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York in Utica, means the state is barred from enforcing any requirement that employers deny religious exemptions. His ruling does not suspend the mandate for other workers, and doesn’t require that an application for a religious exception necessarily be granted.
Despite the ruling, Hochul said she continued to stand behind the mandate.
“We believe it works. It has had a dramatic effect on our ability to protect people, particularly health care workers,” Hochul said. “When someone is sick and they go into an urgent care center or go into a hospital they are in need of help because they are in a vulnerable, physical state. They need to know that the person taking care of them will not pass on this deadly virus to them or their family members.”
Hochul also provided details on the impact of the mandate on the health care field, reporting that 3% of employees at nursing homes, adult care facilities, hospitals and those providing home health care were terminated, resigned, retired or furloughed after refusing to get inoculated. Roughly half of 1% percent of employees in those fields are still waiting to get vaccinated while others are still employed because they cited religious exemptions.
The data shows that 92% of nursing home staff have received at least one shot, along with 96% of hospital employees; 95% of adult care facility staff and 94% of those working in home health care. The figures are up considerably in each category since Hochul took office in late August, she said.
“I think that the mandates have brought people to the right decision and you can see that bearing out in what we have right here,” Hochul said, only moments before she received her annual flu shot.
It remains unclear precisely how many workers in each of the four fields have left their jobs, either statewide or on Long Island, and administration officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Northwell Health, the state’s largest health care system, said earlier this month that it had fired 1,400 employees for refusing to comply with the mandate. Other health care systems in the region have reported firings or suspensions in the dozens or low hundreds.
The State Department of Health identified some 34,000 home health care aides who had not been vaccinated as of Oct. 8, when their mandate went into effect, according to Al Cardillo, president and chief executive of the Albany-based Home Care Association of New York State.
A final provider survey should be complete by Thursday, he said, but the preliminary figures translate to up to 170,000 patients who are “unable to be served by these aides under the state’s mandate, plus nurses and others who did not vax. These numbers are fluid however as we continue to urge and support provider efforts to promote staff vaccination.”
Just over 85% of all adults in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to state figures.
Hochul said while infection rates continued to decline in most regions, she was “not spiking the football any time soon,” in part because the colder weather would force more activities inside.
She noted that the number of breakthrough infections of fully vaccinated New Yorkers had crept up slightly from 0.8% to 0.9% but that nearly 450,000 residents across the state have received booster shots to amplify their immunity to the virus, including nearly 81,000 on Long Island.
Meanwhile, in the month since New York City’s vaccine mandate to patronize eateries, bars and entertainment venues began being enforced, more than 6,000 businesses have been warned for violating the rules, and 15 fines were issued, out of 31,000 inspections, according to Jonnel Doris, commissioner of the city’s small business services agency, at the mayor’s daily news conference on Wednesday.
Violations can include failing to enforce the mandate, along with inadequate signage and improper check-in procedures, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
With Matthew Chayes
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