Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year From Our Departing Mayor: NYC Residents Must Check Vax Status Of Babysitters, Housekeepers, Plumbers Under New Mandate

Your home is a workplace! Post this there visibly to attest that you are requiring your nanny and any plumber, or private tutors entering the premises to prove they have been vaccinated.

Jezzum!!!

Talk about scary!!

I am even asking myself of this is true.  If it’s true, why isn’t it a major story in the New York Times? . . . But it does seem to be true!  The Gothamist is reporting it solemnly in a way that doesn’t look like a spoof that would have gotten through holiday-distracted editors.  WNYC is sending the story along in emails, maybe on the air as well.

Here is the headline in the Gothamist:

NYC Residents Must Check Vax Status Of Babysitters, Housekeepers Under New Mandate,  by Jake Offenhartz, December 28, 2021.

Gothamist article on de Blasio's Nanny Mandate

This requirement comes from our departing mayor Bill de Blasio days before his administration ends. In a probably obligatory way the NYC Health Commissioner is mentioned as being involved.  The City Council wasn't involved.

Really awful things often get shoved through on the cusp where one administration is exiting and another coming in. That’s true often at the local government level or at top national levels.  It dilutes accountability and blame.  One day, you may not even be able to remember who did it, and where will Mr. De Blasio soon have moved onto by then?

I’ve tried to keep Noticing New York out of the Covidian debate issues, but this is such an authoritarian shift in city governance it can hardly go unnoticed.  You have to ask: What this kind of high-handed intrusion into people’s lives might herald for the future in many areas aside from Covid?

Here is some of the text of the Gothamist article telling the story- escalating fines and penalties starting at $1,000?:

    The mandate, which took effect on Monday, means that city residents who may not think of themselves as traditional employers are now legally required to check the vaccination status of those paid to work in their homes, according to Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesperson for the city Law Department.

    * * * *

    Paying a handyman on TaskRabbit to mount a new flatscreen TV on your wall? Under the city’s latest executive order, the person doing the hiring is technically required to verify the handyman’s proof of vaccination. The same goes for nannies, plumbers, movers, private tutors and just about any other professional not directly employed by an outside entity.
    Those that don’t abide by the rules could face a fine of $1,000 – with escalating penalties on subsequent violations, according to the city’s guidelines.

    * * * *

    . .  Over the weekend, AKAM, a property manager with roughly 50,000 units across the city, informed residents that they would have to obtain vaccine compliance forms from any worker entering their building.

    “Each resident should be able to provide that proof of vaccination to the Management team if requested,” an email sent by AKAM read. “The property reserves the right to revert any fines or other penalties for non-compliance back to the resident if they are determined to be the cause for non-compliance.

All of this with zero reference to the context of the comparable or superior immunity that it is believed unvaccinated people may have from having had Covid already.  At this point, numbers indicate that probably half of New Yorkers or more have already had Covid.  It also seems to have zero acknowledgment of the ineffectiveness and short-term protection of the vaccines, especially when it comes to the newer variants.  The vaccines don’t provide protection immediately (even you can then carry around a card) and a few short months after a “booster” (three?) the protection may have ebbed to as low as 30%. . .

The New York Times has even published on its front page the thinking that: “too many shots may eventually lead to a sort of immune system fatigue, compromising the body’s ability to respond to the virus.”

. . . Meanwhile, a major New York City medical center is sending me repeated emails telling me that children over five should all get the still experimental vaccines.  Is that truly good, reliable advice for a major medical center to be sending out?  What if your doctor has different opinions about all of this?

Do I now have to be fined $1,000+ or fire my parent’s trusted long-term caretaker because her doctor has advised against her getting a “booster,” including because she had bad side effects from previous shots?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our departing Mayor de Blasio.