Thousands of unvaccinated NYC Municipal Employees to be fired next week

The Adams administration has alerted nearly 4,000 unvaccinated municipal employees — including cops and firefighters — that they will lose their jobs if they do not get their coronavirus shots by the end of next week.

Adams’ shot across the bow came in letters issued to the affected workers this week informing them that they have until Feb. 11 to get inoculated.

Speaking at City Hall on Monday, Adams said the ultimatum is about safety and argued that city employees have had long enough to comply with the municipal workforce vaccine mandate, which took effect Nov. 1.

“Safety is not only to stop the bullet, a knife or some other item. Safety is COVID. COVID is taking lives,” the mayor said. “There must be rules, and we must follow them. The rule is to get vaccinated if you are a city employee.”

The roughly 4,000 workers at risk of getting the boot fall into two categories, according to data provided by City Hall.

The first category comprises about 1,000 workers hired after Aug. 2 — the date when former Mayor Bill de Blasio first announced the municipal mandate — who have yet to present proof of receiving a second vaccine dose.

The remaining nearly 3,000 are unvaccinated and have been on unpaid leave since Nov. 1 without electing to receive city-provided health benefits.

This week’s termination escalation from the Adams administration comes amid a slowdown in vaccinations among city workers.

As of the Jan. 26 data set, 95% of the city’s more than 370,000 workers have gotten at least one shot — the same rate as when de Blasio left office Jan. 1.

That’s in spite of the fact that the omicron variant triggered a massive COVID-19 outbreak last month.

The omicron resurgence has since subsided, and the city’s daily test positivity average dipped to 4.26% on Monday, down from 22.31% on Jan. 2.