New York City has witnessed substantial increase in Covid-19 vaccination among city employees since a vaccine mandate was announced on October 20, according to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. The city recorded over 22,000 newly reported Covid-19 vaccinations among city workers since October 20, and up to 91 per cent of city employees had been vaccinated, said de Blasio at a press conference on Monday morning.

The vaccination rate with police department employees went up from 70 to 84 per cent in around 10 days while the proportion of workers getting at least one shot of Covid-19 vaccine jumped to 83 from 62 per cent in the period, Xinhua news agency reported. The fire department employees administered with at least one dose of vaccine also increased by more than 20 percentage points, according to New York City Mayor. The vaccine mandate covering the vast majority of over 3,00,000 city workers took effect on Monday and those failing to follow the mandate are put on unpaid leave. De Blasio said 9,000 city employees are on leave without pay on Monday and the remaining 12,000 unvaccinated city workers have applied for a medical or religious exemption.