Lauren Dempsey, MS in Biomedicine and Law, RN, FISM News 

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On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that effective today all businesses in New York state will need to require staff and customers to show proof of vaccination or wear masks, with owners who are found to be noncompliant facing up to a $1,000 fine per violation.

Proof of vaccination will be required for anyone who is 12 or older and children aged 5-11 must show proof of one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals can show proof of vaccination to businesses by presenting an official vaccination record.  This mandate will remain in place until Jan. 15, but may be extended if the governor or health department deems it necessary.

New York is just one more state implementing a mask mandate, joining Hawaii, Nevada, and New Mexico. 

This most recent edict may have a negative impact on businesses that have been struggling for the last two years among numerous lockdowns and mitigation strategies that are difficult for small businesses to maintain.

Some counties in New York plan to defy the order all together. However, officials in New York are implementing stricter measures in order to provide greater protection for people during the holiday season, especially when faced with the unknown regarding the Omicron variant.

In a statement on the matter Governor Hochul said, “The temporary measures I am taking today will help accomplish this through the holiday season,” and added “we shouldn’t have reached the point where we are confronted with a winter surge, especially with the vaccine at our disposal, and I share many New Yorkers’ frustration that we are not past this pandemic yet.”

She also added that “This was completely avoidable — [a] completely avoidable circumstance,” the governor continued. “This is a crisis of the unvaccinated.”

The governor clearly places blame for the winter surge on individuals who have chosen, for religious, medical, or philosophical reasons, to exercise their bodily autonomy and not get vaccinated.

Her statement gives a false sense of security in the ability of  the COVID-19 vaccines to prevent transmission of the virus, especially when research shows that protection declines within 4 to 6 months. This also raises the question of how data on hospitalizations is being categorized.

With the ever changing definition of what it means to be fully vaccinated, it is important to understand how this data is being distributed to have an accurate picture of the seriousness of the latest surge.  

The Delta variant still accounts for 99% of cases across the United States , including vaccinated individuals, and three-quarters of the positive cases that can be attributed to the Omicron variant are in people who are vaccinated and have had booster shots.

Over the course of the last two years, these mitigation strategies have not stopped transmission of the virus. The initial two weeks to slow the spread was intended to literally slow the spread of the virus over an extended period of time in an effort to prevent overwhelming understaffed hospital systems. 

In her statement, Hochul thanked “the more than 80 percent of adult New Yorkers who have done the right thing to get fully vaccinated. If others will follow suit, these measures will no longer be necessary.”