NYC plans employer vaccine mandate

Just weeks before leaving office, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced all private employers in the nation’s largest city must require their workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Anyone over age 11 will also have to get both doses, rather than just one, in order to dine indoors at a restaurant, go to the gym, or attend the theater, de Blasio said Monday. The requirements are set to take effect on Dec. 27. The city already requires hospital and nursing home workers, city employees, and public and private school teachers to get vaccinated.

Will courts let him do that? The mayor said he expects his mandate, one of the most aggressive in the country, to withstand legal challenges. President Joe Biden’s similar nationwide mandate for businesses with 100 or more employees is currently on hold while courts weigh lawsuits against it.

Dig deeper: Read Steve West’s report in Liberties about religious vaccine exemptions in the military.