Freedom 1, Tyranny 0: NYC mayor breaks on vaccine mandate for athletes
New York City Mayor Eric Adams relented this week and lifted the vaccine mandate for athletes after backlash triggered by Kyrie Irving.
Irving, all-star point guard for the Brooklyn Nets, has been the subject of media attention since last year for refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate. He was banned in October even from practicing with his team because he was not vaccinated. But Irving refused to bend the knee and maintained that “nobody should be forced to do anything with their bodies.”
Then in December, when the vaccinated members of the Brooklyn Nets were hit with a COVID infection wave and suffered injuries, the Nets allowed Irving to play in road games.
But Irving still hasn’t been allowed to play a home game since October.
When Adams lifted the vaccine mandates for only the public sector on March 7th, many pointed out how this disadvantaged New York City’s athletes, who were kept under a vaccine mandate while visiting players were not.
Specifically, fans went to bat for Kyrie Irving.
Adams was honest when he replied that it wasn’t so much about public health, but about following rules.
“It would send the wrong message just to have an exception for one player when we’re telling countless number of New York City employees, ‘If you don’t follow the rules, you won’t be able to be employed.'” he told CNBC.
The backlash became particularly fierce last week after Irving was forced to sit at a game with the fans, who were allowed to be unvaccinated, and watch his team play the New York Knicks. Then, he triggered a $50,000 fine for his team by stepping into his own team’s locker room while unvaccinated.
Adams faced intense outrage after that, with Irving’s own teammates and even The Daily Show's Trevor Noah blasting the mayor for a mandate that “makes zero sense”.
“So Kyrie can go inside, not wear a mask, even hug a teammate but he cannot play," Noah said on his show. "I don’t get it, why? Does the ball have a weak immune system, what is going on? I mean, it’s crazy. Just think about it, Kyrie can’t play but he can sit in the stands, right, like a fan. And then as a fan, what happens if he gets picked to take the half-court shot to win the car? Can he do that? What are those rules, how does that work?”
“Yeah, guys, I don’t care like how COVID compliant you are, shit like this makes zero sense, can we agree on this?” Noah added.
As recently as Friday, Adams’ administration doubled down on the mandate, reported Frontline News. New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan told ABC7 on Friday that the vaccine mandate for private sector businesses has no end in sight.
“I think it’s indefinite at this point,” said Vasan. “People who have tried to predict what’s going to happen in the future for this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face, as they say. And I’m not going to do that here today.”
“I would love for me to sit here and say, I can give you a date or a data point for when we would lift those things,” he continued. “Right now, we are in a low-risk environment, and we will continue to evaluate that data.”
But today, Adams did an about-face.
“Today I signed emergency Executive Order 62, expanding the performance exemption to private employer mandates,” Adams said. “This is about putting New York City-based performance on a level playing field. Day one when I was mayor, I looked at the rule that stated ‘hometown players had an unfair disadvantage to those who we’re coming to visit.’”
“And immediately, I felt that we needed to look at that,” Adams claimed.
“But my medical professionals said, ‘Eric, we’re at a different place. We have to wait until we’re at a place we’re at a low area and we can re-examine some of the mandates.’ We’re here today.”
