'Why is this hard?': De Blasio urges more New Yorkers to get vaccinated
NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio is making an urgent appeal to unvaccinated New Yorkers to get their COVID-19 shots amid rising infections and worry about the delta variant. And he said if you don't get vaccinated, you're potentially hurting other people.
"We're having a national dialogue that has become insane," de Blasio said on Tuesday, clearly frustrated with New Yorkers and Americans across the country who are not getting vaccinated.
"We have the solution to the thing that is killing so many people and is now threatening, once again, our ability for people to make a living," the mayor said. "Why is this hard? Just go get vaccinated. This is not difficult."
Adding a mountain of pressure is the quickly-spreading delta variant, which is now the dominant variant in the city accounting for spiking numbers.
"We've got to be blunt about it — if you're not getting vaccinated, you're actually causing harm to other people," de Blasio said.
So now the Mayor is cracking down. On Wednesday, he is expected to announce that employees in the 11 hospitals run by the city will have to choose to get either fully vaccinated or tested on a weekly basis. If they don't, they cannot work. This also applies to health clinics operated by the city Health Department and it starts in August.
About one-third of city public hospital workers have not gotten a vaccine and about 40% of the city's total population is not vaccinated.
"They're saying, 'Well, we're going to wear a mask so we're not going to get vaccinated.' That's crazy," de Blasio said.
Health officials reported 576 new cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday and that the number of people testing positive in New York City on a seven-day average is now 1.72%. But de Blasio pointed out that this isn't showing the whole picture because testing isn't as widespread as it once was.
In the meantime, many medical professionals say increasing testing is key in efforts to track and monitor it.
"I think what we've seen in New York City as well as elsewhere around the country is a substantial decrease in the number of people getting tested," Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, told FOX 5 NY. "Therefore it makes it difficult to understand exactly what's going on in terms of this pandemic."
The ease of transmissibility of the delta variant has reignited the debate regionally over masks being worn when indoors. Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont's office said there are no plans to impose a mask mandate as of now. And New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday told CNBC that he hopes to not have to reinstate mask mandates there.
Get breaking news alerts in the FOX 5 NY News app. Download for FREE!
De Blasio said a mask mandate would be punishing New Yorkers who got a vaccine.
"I think it is a problem to say to people you did the right thing but now you've got to put your mask back on," de Blasio said.
But Council Member Mark Levine, head of the health committee, supports a mask mandate. Good Day New York on Tuesday asked Levine if he could force the mayor's hand to make it happen.
"I've been talking to folks inside the Health Department and I'll continue to do that," he said. "It's unclear if the City Council would have legal authority to legislate. I'm looking into that as well."