Learned from an industry colleague the other day that NYC is lifting its indoor vaccine mandate... and instead allowing businesses to make that choice for themselves.
I feel like should be happy, but the fact that this happened at all without a massive public outcry when it was first implemented back in July just frustrates the hell out of me. Moreover, the lifting of mandates to patronize indoor establishments is simply just that: it doesn’t lift the vaccination requirements for anyone who works in the city, save for the two or three arms of public transport sector that have known since day one that enforcing this would cripple the MTA overnight. Not banning the mandates outright has simply created an environment where a two-tier society is allowed to simmer rather than come to a full boil. Eric Adams is allowing this to continue because even though every other person is fed up with the covid restrictions, even in New York City, there is enough of a percentage of his voterbase who don’t actually want the mandates to end, so he came to a solution that is only superficially satisfying.
You might be thinking to yourself, “Why would any restaurant or bar enforce these if given the choice? Do they hate money?” But considering this is New York City, there’s enough true believers of the coof among private business orders that they’ll continue to enforce these with the excuse that they want to make their clientele feel safe. Walk through the West Village, Hell’s Kitchen or basically anywhere in Chelsea and you’ll see cafes, barber shops and restaurants flying those ugly new pride flags and posting sanctimonious statements about racial equity on their windows. These are the kind of people who will continue to enforce these mandates unopposed and not have their business go tits up because the same kind of clientele who frequent these places are the kinds of people who think anyone who so much as questions the efficacy of the vaccines is subhuman. I don’t patronize these places, but allowing this mentality to continue to fester long after covid has stopped being an issue for the majority of Americans who don’t live in an urban bubble is a net negative to the cohesion of an already extremely dysfunctional society.
I don’t see the Excelsior Pass (or Docket if you live in New Jersey) getting retired anytime soon either. Too much taxpayer money was funneled into its development back in early 2021 for NYC to take it off the App Store, even if they have the ability to do so at any time. It’ll be optional, sure, but I suspect that NYC will try to expand it to contain other bits of personal info in order to justify its continued existence. This isn’t new. Everyone who has known about WeChat has been predicting this the moment digital vaccine passports were being entertained on a state level, and they have damn good reason to be afraid.
TLDR Making indoor vaccine mandates a choice instead of getting rid of them entirely is gonna turn every major urban center from now on into a soft two-tier society and has set a dangerous precedent because of it.