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Candidates Clash Over Vaccine Mandates

The New York City mayoral candidates Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa offered opposing perspectives over whether city workers, including police officers and firefighters, should be required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Do you agree with the new mandate, and as mayor, will you uphold the benching of police officers and firefighters who refuse? You have one minute. I’m vaccinated, and I was on the ground during Covid, and I know what happened. I saw family members dropping off their loved ones to hospitals, never to see them again. I saw how it traumatized our businesses, how it destroyed our economy. I believe the mayor’s action today was correct. I would have handled it differently. I would have sat down with my union members, and I would have sat down with those who are involved, and we have worked out a way we could come to an agreement. I stated this over and over during Covid. Credible messengers — the heads of unions, they are the credible messengers for their members, and I believe that we can come to the appropriate place where we can vaccinate everyday New Yorkers, protect us. We can never go back to where we were when Covid hit the city. Mr. Adams, just to be clear, will you uphold the benching of police officers and firefighters? Yes, I would. I disagree with Eric. I feel that we don’t have enough police officers as it is. So now, after establishing the rules which were, get vaccinated, which I am, or get tested once a week, same with firefighters — now what did we do to the teachers? What did we do to the health care workers who were crawling into the belly of the beast during the lockdown in the pandemic? I know, because I and the Guardian Angels with taking care of the emotionally disturbed and the homeless in the subways and in Penn Station. We cheered them at night at 7:00. Then all of a sudden we decided — de Blasio, who has supported Eric Adams here, a better team, that all of a sudden they would lose their jobs — that is a horror — if they weren’t going to be vaccinated. We should never fire — [Moderator] “Thank you, Mr. Sliwa.” — for that reason.

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Candidates Clash Over Vaccine Mandates

By The New York Times October 20, 2021

The New York City mayoral candidates Eric Adams and Curtis Sliwa offered opposing perspectives over whether city workers, including police officers and firefighters, should be required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

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