NYC Mayor Adams Weighing Covid Booster Mandates in April

(Bloomberg) -- New York City Mayor Eric Adams said the city could expand its Covid-19 vaccine mandates to include requiring booster shots in April.

“We will do an analysis around April based on the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and see if we want to mandate them,” Adams said in a Monday interview on Bloomberg Television's “Balance of Power with David Westin.”

Right now, public sector employees are required to be fully vaccinated. A vaccine mandate for private sector workers went into place on Dec. 27, with employees required to get their second dose within 45 days or they won't be allowed to come to their workplaces.

Adams, who became the city's 110th mayor on Saturday, also said he was urging banks and other businesses who are letting employees work from home during the winter Covid spike to bring those workers back.

One in three Covid tests came back positive over the last seven days, according to city data as of Dec. 31. The surge has prompted businesses and Wall Street banks including Citigroup, Bank of America Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to reverse course from pushing their workers back to offices and allow them to work remotely again.

“That accountant from a bank that sits in an office, it's not only him, it's our financial ecosystem. He goes out to the restaurant. He brings the business travel, which is 70% of our hotel occupancy. He participates in the economy,” Adams said.

He said open offices are pivotal to an ecosystem that provide jobs to low-skilled and unskilled workers. “They cannot remotely do their jobs. I need companies back open and operating. You cannot run a city like New York on 30% occupancy in buildings,” he said.