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Metro

NYC’s new top doc calls Kyrie-barring vaccine mandate ‘indefinite’

By
Nolan Hicks
Published March 18, 2022
Updated March 18, 2022, 6:58 p.m. ET
City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan
City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan argued the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for employees is crucial to building "a wall of immunity" against the virus. Stephen Yang

Newly-minted Big Apple Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan says the city’s COVID vaccine mandates for public and private employees would likely be continued on an “indefinite” basis, keeping unvaccinated Nets superstar Kyrie Irving and Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is not believed to have gotten the shots unable to play in home games.

The policy has come under fire — particularly from some New York City sports fans — because visiting players aren’t subjected to the Health Department’s regulations as they are not based inside the five boroughs.

The Post recently ran a front page editorial calling for Mayor Eric Adams to ditch or revise the policy.

Vasan offered the answer Friday when pressed by a reporter during a press conference on what the criteria would be for ending the policy.

“I think it’s indefinite at this point,” he said. “People who have tried to predict what’s going to happen in the future for this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face and I’m not going to do that here today.”

He also defended the policy as an essential protection against the pandemic.

Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, while barred from competing at home games, is allowed to sit as a spectator at the Barclays Center.
Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving, while barred from competing at home games, is allowed to sit as a spectator at the Barclays Center. Robert Sabo

“Our mandates have been among the most important life-saving policies that we’ve put into place throughout this pandemic and it’s helped us build up a wall of immunity,” Vasan said at the Health Department’s offices in Long Island City during his first press briefing as the city’s top doctor.

Data released by the Health Department earlier this month showed that New York City’s high rate of vaccination helped prevent 48,000 deaths and an estimated 330,000 hospitalizations.

But critics of the policies say the city’s plummeting case numbers and relaxation of other coronavirus restrictions — like the vaccine passport program and masking requestions — mean it’s time to put the vaccine mandates back under the spotlight.

In this file photo a patient receives her first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine at a pop up vaccine clinic at the Jewish Community Center on April 16, 2021 in the Staten Island borough of New York City.
The Big Apple’s vaccine mandate is poised to interfere with unvaccinated Yankees and Mets players. ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

The chief of the city’s public hospital system, Mitch Katz, dismissed those arguments as he sat next to Vasan at the briefing.

“We have many mandates for vaccinations that are for disease that are very low, including polio and measles,” he said. “Nobody has suggested that we should — because polio levels are so low — we should say that school children shouldn’t be vaccinated for polio.”