Mountains of garbage, closed fire stations, and fewer police and ambulances on the streets ambulances: this is the scenario for which New York City is preparing for the resistance of thousands of municipal workers to get vaccinated.
Police, firefighters, garbage men and most city employees have until 5:00 p.m. this Friday to prove that they have received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine.
Whoever does not do so will be put on leave without pay from next Monday.
The mayor, Democrat Bill de Blasio, stood firm in his mandate as firefighters rallied outside his official residence Thursday, sanitation workers skipped garbage pickups in protest, and the city's largest police union He went to court to paralyze the vaccine requirement.
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Pat Lynch, president of the Sympathetic Police Association, said the mandate "prepares the city for a real crisis," the Associated Press news agency reported.
And Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, warned that longer response times "will be a death sentence for some people."
De Blasio said Thursday that the city has the right personnel to act, including mandatory overtime and extra shifts.
The mandate applies to about 100,000 employees.
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"Prepare for the worst and hope for the best," said Joseph Mannion, president of the Sanitation Officials Association, who heralds a worker shortage Monday if vaccination rates among this sector do not rise on Friday.
Nearly a quarter of city employees had not yet received at least one dose of the vaccine as of Thursday, including 26% of police personnel, 29% of firefighters and Emergency Medical Services workers, and 33% of sanitation workers, according to city data.
The city jail guards have one more month to serve.
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More than 700 officers were vaccinated Thursday, police said, to meet the mandate deadline.
There was also an extra incentive: workers who get vaccinated will receive $ 500.
A Staten Island judge on Wednesday rejected a police union's request to temporarily block the mandate, but ordered city officials to come to his courtroom next month to explain why the requirement should not be repealed.
If the mandate is deemed illegal, pay will be returned to workers who have been laid off, according to the city.
Pedestrians pass garbage bags stacked on a Manhattan street after a slowdown in garbage collection by workers unhappy with the mandatory vaccination imposed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, in New York on October 28, 2021. ED JONES / AFP via Getty Images
Vaccine resistance in the Army
About 12,000 members of the Air Force have also refused to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, thus defying the mandate of the Pentagon, which threatened to fire anyone who does not.
Officials told The Washington Post that it is too late for them to do so before the Tuesday deadline.
More than 96% of active airmen have at least one dose, according to data from the Air Force.
And officials have warned that those who defy orders to get fully vaccinated, except for approved medical or religious exemption, are subject to punishment, including firing.
The Air Force is the third largest military service, behind the Navy, with 324,000 active duty service members.
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However, a court decision complicates the possibility of firing them.
A Washington DC judge issued an order on Thursday asking the Biden government that the plaintiffs, both civilian and serving military, not be fired pending resolution of their religious exception requests.