How will New Yorkers be vaccinated to regain their pre-COVID liberties?
This is the question that lingered over several government mandates which went into effect last week. Every business within the state is required to show proof that every customer and employee has received full COVID-19 vaccine.
Violators could be subject to fines up to $1,000 Enforcement is being left to county governments, of which an estimated one-quarter—almost all run by Republicans—have indicated they will not participate in.
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus said that “my health department has crucial things to do which are more important than enforcement this.” New York PostHe stated that his government rejected “using Gestapo strategies and going business-to-business and asking them if it is enforcing the masking.” Paul Pettit (public health director in Genesee and Orleans Counties) made an identical, albeit less exaggerated point. “We don’t have the resources to enforce mask mandates. Enforcing mandates does not make the most of our limited resources at the moment of pandemic response.”
Current rates for New Yorkers aged 12 years and over are currently at 81%. Six months ago, when Hochul’s predecessor Andrew Cuomo lifted almost all statewide COVID restrictions, he did so because the Empire State had crossed the 70 percent threshold set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—not for full vaccination of everyone over age 12, mind you, but for single shots among adults.
“What does 70 percent mean?” Cuomo spoke then. “That’s why it is possible to return back to our lives as they are.”
New York adult vaccination rates are now at 93 per cent.
“The temporary measures that I am taking now will help,” [slow the spread]Hochul made the statement that first revealed the mandate. “We should not have reached this stage, particularly with the vaccine available, and I understand that many New Yorkers are frustrated at the fact we’re still facing a pandemic.
Contra Hochul it’s not certain that 100 percent vaccination would have stopped the third consecutive winter surge across northeastern, the region with the highest levels of vaccination. AndCoronavirus is a serious disease in the United States. Middlebury College in Vermont cancelled in-person instruction after 50 cases were reported on its campus. This was in response to a 99% vaccination rate.
New Hampshire and Rhode Island are the top three states for current case rates. Close behind them, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Connecticut, New York, and Vermont follow closely. However, these same states are ranked 9th through 26th according to recent hospitalizations rates. There are none in the top 20 deaths.
In a NBC Nightly News story, Eric Dickson of University of Massachusetts Memorial Healthcare stated that Massachusetts is the nation’s most vaccinated. However, the state is now experiencing a spike in COVID. This claim is preposterous—as of Tuesday, the Bay State’s seven-day average of deaths was 17, compared to 51 last year.
Before the arrival of the omicron version, which is much more contagious and preliminarily more deadly than the delta variant, epidemiologists had been urging public officials and politicians to be more concerned about serious illness and less about the number of cases.
“In highly vaccinated areas,” wrote infectious disease specialists Monica Gandhi and Leslie Bienen in Sunday’s New York TimesThe key to understanding our performance is not case counts but hospitalizations. America is in the slow process of accepting that Covid-19 will become endemic—meaning it will always be present in the population at varying levels.”
This is a slow process. Hochul and many other Democrats along the coast continue to place emphasis on hospitalizations over cases, attribute worsening trends to individual behavior, rather than seasonality, shape policies around carrots rather than sticks. This is the crisis of unvaccinated. The governor said Tuesday that it was possible to prevent the crisis. If I seem a bit annoyed, it could be because I am.
Faced with the spread of omicron, there’s a strong desire to penalize the unvaccinated and raise the standard of vaccination. include booster shotsIgnore any discomfort, such as job loss, denial of service, or social isolation, that is imposed by the blue-state governments on those who are not compliant.
As ReasonRobby Soave of’s pointed out Tuesday that New York City is running ads showing unhappy teenagers exempted from extracurricular activities and social events. The commercials warned parents that they “will miss out” on their child unless they get immunized.Let your teens start being teens again!” The tagline is as follows:
This formulation creates the false impression that teenagers are being prevented from fully participating in what was, until recently, considered normal. In Florida, teenagers are still teens. Florida’s public schools have been open full-time since 2020. There, kids no longer wear masks and there is no shortage of options for them. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio took the deliberate decision to ban athletes from band practice and from participating in athletic competition.
De Blasio stated Monday that by putting the mandate on for children under the age of five for indoor entertainment and other activities, it is clear that more people will be vaccinated, which has a positive impact on the household. True. This is also true. The city’s unvaccinated schoolchildren have a strong testing program. Their positivity rate has been just 0.32 percent since September, which is less than 1 per 300.
The seven-day rolling average shows an increase in that number—up to 0.78 percent for students and staff combined, or about one for every 130 tests, as the winter surge hits Gotham. Contrary to the hysterical predictions of politicians that schools would be superspreaders over the summer, these data confirm what we have known for more than a year. Congregate settings for children are the most safest during the pandemic. This is due to the fact that they don’t contract, spread or sustain COVID-19 at the same rate as adults.
Out of 100,000 people in the city, there was a 419 death rate. This number was 2. Children under the age of 18 are not eligible for this exemption.
It is possible for the pediatric vaccine rates to rise. While the 12–17 cohort is vaccinated at a 71 percent clip in NYC, 5–11s—who have only had access to the jab since the first week of November—stand at 22 percent. It is possible to get vaccinated at a 71 percent clip in NYC for the 12-17 cohort. However, 5-11s–who have had access since November 1st–are only 22 percent. Miracle at 34th Streetwere reset in New York City, Little Natalie Wood probably wouldn’t have met Kris Kringle if she hadn’t been barred by Macy’s.
In the United States, denials of service to large classes of customers have a lengthy and often unhappy history. It also, even in a COVID context, does not poll well—51 percent of Americans surveyed this month by AxiosAccording to /Ipsos, denying vaccines should not be allowed. However, there is a clear partisan divide regarding pandemic intervention. The same poll showed that 78 percent of Democrats support mandated workplace vaccinations. This compares to the 30 percent of Republicans. COVID regulations are often concentrated in the blue states because some of these vaccines are very popular.
The majority of New Yorkers in government and journalism will be okay with the punishment of vaccine-recalcitrants (and their kids) for their own benefit, even though it means marginalizing minority and poor communities. Some may be prepared to take the economic hits that come with further burdening their businesses or alienating customers.
However, what happens after the rate of two shots goes up from 81 percent and 90 percent, or maybe 95 percent and the cold and the new variants still increase case rates? What amount of government power will Democrats use to ensure full compliance with minority communities who have lost faith in authority institutions? We’ll soon find out.