Educators Will Be First N.Y.C. Workers to Face Full Vaccine Mandate

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday that all Department of Education employees must have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27.

New York City will require all Department of Education employees to have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Sept. 27, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. The announcement represents a major step in the effort to fully reopen the country’s largest school district next month, and a significant escalation of the mayor’s push to vaccinate more New Yorkers. Mr. de Blasio has put reopening city schools at the center of his plan to help New York recover from the pandemic. The mayor is eager to reassure anxious parents and educators that schools will be safe this year despite an uptick in cases in the last two months linked to the Delta variant, especially since the city is no longer offering a remote learning option. The city’s vaccine requirement, which applies to roughly 148,000 education workers, is also almost certain to be a harbinger of future mandates around the country for school districts, municipal employees, private businesses and federal government agencies in the days and weeks to come, following the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for those 16 and older on Monday.