Fox News is removing their COVID-19 testing option and will instead be forcing employees at their New York offices to get vaccinated.
Previously, employees who did not wish to be vaccinated could undergo regular testing instead.
Under the new rules, employees will have to have their first dose by December 27 to comply with New York City’s mandate for businesses.
“Our policy reflects the guidelines of the mandate,” a spokesman for Fox Corp. told the New York Times.
Earlier this month, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all workers at all on-site businesses must be vaccinated. The Times reports that “New York’s mandate for workplaces requires that recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines receive a second dose, but the policy does not currently require booster shots.”
New York currently has the strictest vaccination policies in the nation but is still shattering records for number of cases and unemployment.
On Thursday, the state reported 21,027 new COVID-19 cases in one day, breaking a previous record set in January. There appears to be little to no difference in spikes between states with strict requirements, like New York, and states with less or no mandates.
New York is also struggling with unemployment at much higher rates than states like Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis has been resisting mandates.
“I told Floridians that we would protect their jobs, and today we made that the law,” DeSantis said in November. “Nobody should lose their job due to heavy-handed COVID mandates, and we had a responsibility to protect the livelihoods of the people of Florida. I’m thankful to the Florida Legislature for joining me in standing up for freedom.”
“The vow to protect jobs is reflected in unemployment data in the state. In the metro area of Florida’s largest city, Jacksonville, unemployment fell to 3.3% in November. The state’s overall unemployment sat at 4.5% in November, down 0.1% from October,” Fox News notes. “In New York City, the unemployment rate remains well ahead of the national average. The city’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate sat at 9% in November, more than double the national unemployment rate of 4.2%. The figure is also higher than the state’s unemployment rate of 6.6% in November, which is down from October’s 6.9%.”
Fox News says that more than 90 percent of their employees were already vaccinated.
