If you live in the Big Apple, the end of all of the vaccine mandates is finally in sight. The city’s mandate for private sector employers to force all of their workers to take the shots will come to an end on November 1st. (Conveniently just before the election.) The mandate for students to be vaccinated if they wish to participate in extracurricular activities at the city’s public schools is terminated as of today. Mayor Eric Adams described the decision as “moving on to the next level.” He claims to be “putting the choice in the hands of New Yorkers” while still “encouraging” everyone to be vaccinated and boosted. But he gave no hint of any remorse over how the city handled this situation and the negative impacts these mandates had on so many families around the region. (Washington Examiner)

COVID-19 vaccine mandates are coming to an end for the private sector in the Big Apple.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday that the city is pulling the plug on its sweeping vaccine mandate for the private sector and extracurricular activities at city schools. The removal of the private sector mandate will be effective Nov. 1, and the extracurricular mandate will be effective immediately.

“The rollout has been important and crucial, and because we’ve been so successful, it’s time to move on to the next level of fortifying our city,” Adams proclaimed Tuesday, according to NBC New York. “This puts the choice in the hands of New Yorkers. It’s imperative we’re asking them to continue to encourage their employees to get their vaccines and booster shots.”

This order affects private sector employers and public schools, but what about municipal employees? According to Adams, the mandate for city workers to be vaccinated is still in place, but he claims that City Hall is in “a steady phase of pivot and shift.” (Whatever that’s supposed to mean.) Presumably, he’s suggesting that the municipal worker mandate will be coming to an end as well, but he’s not saying when. So private sector workers are now suddenly safe, but city employees are not? Please explain to us again how that works.

These mandates were obviously always for show and not meant as any sort of iron-clad rule to keep people safe. That was made clear by the “exceptions” the city granted to certain people who were considered too important to be made to follow the rules that all of the peasants were forced to obey. The most glaring example of that was when the city exempted all professional athletes from the vaccine mandate. This wasn’t done because athletes are somehow magically immune to catching or transmitting the virus. They did it so Kyrie Irving (who refused to be vaccinated) could play in all of the New York Nets’ home games. The hypocrisy on display has been both astounding and infuriating.

When the mandate for municipal employees finally ends, what will Mayor Adams say to all of the people whose careers were destroyed because they refused to comply with an order to take an experimental vaccine of dubious efficacy? How many police officers and firefighters did we lose during a time of spiraling crime rates and random arson attacks because of these policies? Many of those people moved out of the area completely, looking for new homes in places under less authoritarian rule. Will those people start coming back? A better question is probably… why would they?

As I have maintained for quite a while now, history will not look back kindly on this era of governmental dictates. But Mayor Adams is pretending that he can just bring it all to an end with one stroke of his pen and act like none of this ever happened. I seriously doubt that people are going to forget all of this so easily.