NEW YORK (LifeSiteNews) — The Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY) was forced to “temporarily” close 26 fire stations Saturday after the city’s vaccine mandate caused a massive staffing shortage in the department.
As Democrat Mayor Bill de Blasio had required all New York City workers to provide proof that they received at least one dose of the experimental COVID-19 injections by Friday, the FDNY anticipated that 28 percent of firefighters would be suspended without pay by Monday.
According to the New York Post, all five boroughs in America’s most populous city (Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island) are currently impacted by the closures.
Local politicians and residents alike fielded their concern over the news that the mandate has led to such a massive crisis for the important emergency service.
“If someone dies due to a slower emergency response, it’s on [Mayor] Bill de Blasio and his overreaching mandates. I hope this fool fixes it ASAP!” tweeted Staten Island Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who had five stations closed in her district alone.
“Most of the houses here are semi-attached frame houses. You throw a match on it, and it goes up real quick,” a man who neighbors the now “out of service” Engine Co. 284 in Brooklyn told the Post. “You need a quick response … it’s scary.”
Despite the pleas for aid, FDNY spokesman Jim Long said the closures are not permanent, and the fire companies are merely “temporarily out of service.”
“The situation remains fluid,” said Long. “We hire manpower to get the company back in service or relocate other units to the area for coverage.”
It's official: Joe Biden has announced that his Administration will be forcing COVID vaccinations on nearly 1/3rd of American citizens, blatantly disregarding the personal objections of millions of people and moving America ever closer towards a medical dictatorship.
We cannot stand for this unprecedented overreach, and we will not submit to Biden's tyrannical public coercion efforts.
Please SIGN this urgent petition informing the President that you will NOT comply with these unconstitutional vaccine mandate orders issued by the Biden Administration, and that elected officials should act in their capacity to block these intrusive demands.
On Thursday, September 9th, Joe Biden announced the latest round of federal orders meant to further coerce large swaths of the public into getting the COVID vaccine -- many against their will.
While the legal standing of these measures is, at best, dubious, the Biden Administration appears more ready than ever to gut our individual rights and practically erase medical autonomy in our country.
This latest escalation in overreach was announced via a televised speech in which Biden outlined a new "six-point plan" that includes far more than just six avenues to achieve mass medical compliance.
Among the most egregious new federal mandates are the following:
- A requirement that all private businesses employing more than 100 people mandate their workers get the Covid-19 vaccine or submit to weekly testing (to be implemented by way of a new Department of Labor rule)
- A requirement that all federal employees and federal contractors get the COVID vaccine
- A requirement that all healthcare workers in facilities that receive reimbursement from Medicare and/or Medicaid (an estimated 17 million) get the Covid-19 vaccine without an alternative testing option
- A requirement that all Head Start teachers get the COVID vaccine
- A federal effort to lobby states to implement vaccine mandates for all school employees, and require regular testing of all students and school staff
- A federal effort to lobby entertainment venues to require proof of vaccination or testing in order to grant entry to the public
- A continuation of mask mandates on all federal properties and during interstate travel (i.e. planes, trains, buses)
All in all, these new vaccine mandates, which will go into effect within the coming weeks, will affect an estimated 100 million American workers -- 2/3rds of the entire workforce!
And, according to an administration official, violations of these unconstitutional requirements could result in fines of up to $14,000.
While this is clearly a political ploy on the part of the Joe Biden and his team of power-hungry Washington insiders to shift the focus from their disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the American public knows better: After nearly a year and a half's worth of arbitrary, ever-changing, and unconstitutional government mandates in response to the COVID outbreak, it was always a given that the Biden Administration would ramp things up even further when it behooved them.
And now, it would seem that time has officially come.
"This is not about freedom or personal choice," Biden uttered in his remarks, confirming his administration's blatant dismissal of all Americans' right(s) to accept or decline the experimental Covid-19 vaccine.
This is a stunning reversal from Biden's declaration last December that "I don’t think [the vaccine] should be mandatory, I wouldn’t demand it to be mandatory."
In fact, Biden even confirmed his intention to flout states' rights in the process, warning that "If these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic I’ll use my power as president to get them out of the way."
These are not the words of an "empathetic" leader; these are the words of an aspiring dictator. And, for the time being, the only way to stop Joe Biden's tyranny is through mass noncompliance.
As we've said from the beginning, science, basic logic, and common sense should dictate policy regarding COVID and the Delta variant.
But Joe Biden and the federal government have long abandoned those principles throughout this crisis, culminating into this disturbing yet inevitable flurry of intrusive vaccine mandates that use people's jobs, individual autonomy, and livelihood as leverage.
This assault on our individual rights, private businesses, and American workers cannot be tolerated, and the easiest way to combat these unlawful orders is to just say NO.
Please SIGN and SHARE this most important petition letting Joe Biden know that you will NOT comply with the unconstitutional medical demands being made by this administration, and that action should be taken to block any intrusive action against working Americans and private employers.
Thank you!
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
'Biden announces vaccine requirements for private businesses, impacting tens of millions of Americans': https://www.
Instead of blaming the mandate, which forces firefighters and other emergency responders such as police officers and paramedics to receive the experimental jab or be suspended without pay, Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro slammed the firefighters for refusing to comply with the mandate, and for calling in sick as a way to protest the mandate and extend their time with pay.
“Irresponsible bogus sick leave by some of our members is creating a danger for New Yorkers and their fellow Firefighters,” Nigro said. “They need to return to work or risk the consequences of their actions.”
Last week fire officials warned that as many as 20 percent of the FDNY companies could be closed once the mandate took effect. As of right now, 26 closures represent a closure rate of just under 8 percent, leaving the possibility open that the situation could devolve further.
Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican who chairs the council’s committee on fire and emergency management, warned that even with just a 7.6 percent closure rate, the situation is “unconscionable.”
“The firefighters who are unable to work have all been tested within the week and are not COVID positive,” Borelli informed the public. “And I doubt New Yorkers care about the vaccine status of the person applying defibrillators to their chest.”
According to City Hall, 26,600 workers in the city still remain unvaccinated. About 4,000 of those employees are with the FDNY.
Despite the large number of unjabbed city workers, including 16 percent of those employed by the New York Police Department (NYPD), 23 percent of all FDNY employees, and 28 percent of FDNY firefighters, de Blasio doubled down on his mandate last Thursday, saying he would not extend the deadline.
“No, there’s no discussion of changing the deadline,” de Blasio said. “The bottom line is, can we do the things we need to do first of all to keep this city safe for the long run? Well, that means get people vaccinated. Yes, we can do that, yes, we have a plan to do that.”
The COVID-19 vaccines, which are experimental and do not complete clinical trials until 2023, are potentially linked to 17,619 deaths, according to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database, and millions of injuries worldwide.
Many doctors have taken a strong stance against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination in light of the shot’s safety profiles, including a former vice president at vaccine maker Pfizer, Dr. Michael Yeadon, a former U.S. Department of Health and Human Services epidemiologist Dr. Paul Elias Alexander, and the inventor of mRNA vaccine technology, Dr. Robert Malone.
“When they say they’re safe, you must know they don’t know that. They’ve not been around long enough for them to possibly evaluate,” said Yeadon at a LifeSiteNews conference in August. “Worse, these [vaccine side effects] are deliberate acts which I believe whoever is doing it is lying about it to hide it and they’re smearing people who are trying to warn you. Who do you trust?”