And while the vast majority of staff members at New York City’s largest private hospital network, NewYork-Presbyterian, had been vaccinated as of this week, more than 200 employees faced termination because they had not.

These are just a fraction of the workers at risk of losing their jobs or being put on unpaid leave after Monday, when a state directive requiring hospital and nursing home employees in the state to have received at least one shot of a virus vaccine takes effect.

As of Sept. 22, state data shows, around 84 percent of New York’s 450,000 hospital workers and 83 percent of its 145,400 nursing home employees had been fully vaccinated. But tens of thousands of people are estimated not to have gotten a shot despite being threatened with losing their jobs. The holdouts say they fear potential side effects from the vaccines, have natural immunity or believe that the mandate violates their personal freedom.

On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said that the Monday deadline was firm and that her administration was developing emergency plans to cover for those who are laid off, going so far as to look into recruiting temporary workers from the Philippines or Ireland.