NYPD Commissioner Won’t Force COVID-19 Vaccination

New York Police Department employees will not be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.

“It won’t be mandatory,” he said, per the New York Post. “It’ll be similar to the flu vaccines that we do.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the vaccine will not be required, because “for now, the approach is to focus on education and getting people to buy into this vaccine voluntarily.

“With everything that we’re doing with the vaccine, the best approach is to educate people and get them bought in — answer the questions. There’s a lot of valid questions,” the mayor said.

“We’re still talking about how we want to approach the city workforce, and there’s different elements of the city workforce who do different things,” he added.

The Police Benevolent Association, opposes mandatory vaccination. “In the PBA’s view, it’s a personal medical decision that each member should make in consultation with his or her own doctor.”

The department’s first shipment of vaccines should arrive at the end of this month or at the beginning of January.

The city is supposed to get a total of 72,000 doses in the first nationwide shipments of the vaccine.

Sources: The New York Post and Business Insider; Photo: nypost.com