Mayor Bill de Blasio told expressed support for mayoral hopeful Eric Adams’ plan to issue a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for New York City public school children if elected.
Current Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams narrowly won the democratic nomination for mayor this summer and will face-off against long-shot Republic nominee Curtis Sliwa in November.
During an interview with WBCS 880 last Friday, Adams said he said that if elected mayor he would support a COVID-19 vaccination mandate for public school students similar barring FDA approval of the inoculation.
“This is a city and country where we do vaccinate…We already have a system in place that states before you start school you receive your vaccination. It is to protect the child and the student population. We saw historically what happens when you have an outbreak of a certain type of illness that takes place that you can prevent even from Polio,” Adams told WBCS 880’s Lynda Lopez.
“So I say yes if it’s FDA approved we should mandate it like we mandate with other vaccinations.”
The pledge would be a reversal of Mayor de Blasio’s approach to vaccinations for students returning to public school classrooms after a year and a half of interrupted learning due to the pandemic.
De Blasio has shied away from ordering all vaccine-eligible public school students to get the COVID-19 vaccine out of fear it would deter some families from sending children back into classrooms.
“The key is to get kids in school and we still see too much misinformation out there about the vaccine which means parents who might not let their kids get vaccinated, even if it’s in the kid’s interest, and the kid couldn’t go to school. I don’t want to see that,” de Blasio said Monday.
At the moment, only children between the ages of 12 and 17 are eligible to get the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination although the company has asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to approve the shot for kids between the age of 5 and 11.
So far, 76% of vaccine-eligible kids in New York City, or roughly 407,000 children, have gotten at least the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, de Blasio revealed Monday.
“My job is to govern up to the last day on December 31 and I want to say his job will be to govern from January first on and I respect him greatly, we talk a lot. We’re going to make sure that we work closely together for the interest of the people,” said de Blasio.
“January is a long way away and Eric Adams as new mayor has a full right to decide whatever he thinks is best for our schools and I’m sure he will do what his conscience tells him.”
