NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Hundreds of NYPD members received COVID-19 vaccinations ahead of the city’s looming municipal mandate — though a cop shortage remains a "very real possibility," according to Commissioner Dermot Shea.
Roughly 800 NYPD officers got their jabs Tuesday, bringing the agency’s vaccination rate to about 73% with the municipal workforce’s mandate set for Nov. 1, Shea said during an appearance on PIX11 Wednesday.
“I think yesterday — in one day — we did 800 [vaccinations] is the number I got. I don’t know what happened late yesterday into this morning,” Shea said. “This is minute-by-minute at this point.”
Still, more than a quarter of the force could be put on unpaid leave if they don't meet the city’s 5 p.m. Friday deadline to show proof of at least one coronavirus shot.
Shea said the NYPD is preparing to take various steps, like boosting overtime and double shifts, in anticipation of a shortage of hundreds of officers.
“That’s a very real possibility,” Shea said, saying that he will continue to personally ask officers to get vaccinated.
“We’re planning for contingencies at the same time. It’s very much a topic of the inner circle here,” Shea said, assuming that “New Yorkers will be safe.”
The mandate applies to more than 160,000 city workers — and thousands still needing to get vaccinated. First-responder agencies like the fire and sanitation departments are also reporting low vaccination rates, with only about 65% of their members vaccinated.
Mayor de Blasio has argued that vaccine mandates are a critical tool to boost the population’s vaccine rates. He’s expressed confidence that more and more city workers will get their shots, pointing to the success of the mandates already in place for the city’s Education Department and healthcare workers.
But the city is preparing for a cross-agency shortage of first responders, relying heavily on overtime, the mayor said Wednesday.
“Our – remember, our first responder agencies, our uniformed agencies went through so much last year where they had huge numbers of members out because of COVID and they had to keep making constant adjustments to provide the services we need to keep people safe – and they did it and they did it very well,” de Blasio said during his daily briefing.
De Blasio sidestepped a question on potential overtime costs stemming from a possible worker shortage.
“We're not looking at this from the budgetary perspective, we're looking at this from how to keep people safe, how we end the COVID era, how we turn the corner in the biggest crisis in our history. That's our focus,” the mayor went on.
“Obviously, I'd like everyone to get vaccinated by the end of Friday,” de Blasio. “If they don't they're going off payroll. I don't want those savings, but it does create a savings.”
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