Posted by Connor Nielson.
Ever since March 2020 everyone has been impacted by Covid in some way whether that is either negative or positive. It has been a rough patch for the whole world and it is scary that we do not know when it will end either. Covid has obviously had a huge impact in the business world and any business whether big or small has felt the effects of this pandemic. Businesses were shut down for months and could not generate any revenue during this time which set them back tremendously, a lot even had to close for good. Eventually the vaccine was introduced and New York City was the first major city to require the vaccines indoors. In August of 2021 this mandate started and it affected 184,000 businesses all over the state. This meant needing it to enter all sorts of businesses such as restaurants, movie theaters, and any stores.
After just over two months New York City mayor Eric Adams has announced that the vaccine mandate will end on Sunday March 7th. New York City is joining the likes of two other major cities who also ended their vaccine mandate, those being Seattle and Boston. Adams is also giving businesses about a week to adapt to this as he made this announcement on February 27th, 2022. He has been waiting for this day to finally come as Adams indicated that he has been eagerly planning for the mandate to end at an economic development press conference on February 23rd. Covid cases have been rapidly dropping in New York City as there has been less than 1,000 new cases a day over the past month. Adams has been meeting with top health experts daily to make sure that ending the mandate is a rational decision.
Eric Adams realizes that New York City cannot afford to shut down again as it has too big of an economic impact. He said, “We can’t close down again and I’m not going to do something at my anticipation to get back that’s going to jeopardize closing down the city again. Our economy can’t handle it. We don’t have another $11 billion to put back in the economy. We must do it the smart way,’’. This quote shows how much money is lost due to the effects Covid has on businesses. It is obvious though that this pandemic is far from over and health experts urge that spikes are going to come and go. Dr. Sadiya Khan, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine says, “This seems like a move to promote normalcy without there really being normalcy,”. There seems to be some backlash from health experts that feel like this is the correct decision at this time due to the constant uncertainty around Covid. I personally believe that this is the right decision and that there comes a time where we have to live a normal life despite the scares of Covid. Over 96 percent of adults in New York City are at least partially vaccinated which is an extremely high percentage and I feel that this is high enough to justify eliminating the mandate. This announcement is not only huge for businesses in new York City, but for businesses all across the country as this is going to become more and more common.
Connor is a Business Administration Major, Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2022.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/27/new-york-city-to-lift-vaccination-mandate-for-businesses-events.html