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New York will officially repeal its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers starting Oct. 4. The mandate, which led to thousands of workers being fired or quitting, will be lifted after a lawsuit sponsored by Children’s Health Defense challenged its legality. However, the state may still seek sanctions against workers for alleged past violations.
New York State officially will repeal its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers on Oct. 4, the attorney general’s office on Tuesday informed the New York Supreme Court.
The announcement comes after New York health officials revealed in May that they planned to repeal the mandate, in a surprise move during a hearing in a lawsuit challenging the mandate.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) sponsored the lawsuit, filed Oct. 20, 2022, by a group of medical practitioners affected by the mandate, along with several additional plaintiffs, including two doctors, a nurse, a radiologic technologist and a medical laboratory specialist.
Defendants in the case include the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH), New York Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul and Mary T. Bassett, the state’s health commissioner.
Sujata Gibson, the plaintiffs’ attorney, today told The Defender:
“This is a tremendous victory for the healthcare workers and for medical freedom in general, but also for the people of New York who have been deeply impacted by the massive shortage that occurred because of this mandate. Thirty-four thousand healthcare professionals had to leave the field, and we have all been impacted by their absence.
“While this victory is significant, the fight is not over. People suffered enormously because of this mandate and justice needs to be done so that they can be made whole.”
On Jan. 13, the court found for the plaintiffs and struck down the mandate, declaring it “null, void, and of no effect” and alleging the state’s health department “blatantly violated the boundaries of its authority as set forth by the legislature.”
The state appealed, and separately won a stay against the initial ruling. The stay reinstated the mandate, which affected an estimated 34,000 healthcare workers, and perpetuated the ongoing worker crisis in New York’s healthcare system.
Sujata Gibson told The Defender that by allowing the mandate to remain in place, the stay devastated the lives of thousands of workers who remained shut out of work because they were terminated or suspended.
New York’s Supreme Court Appellate Division in Rochester was scheduled to hear arguments on the mandate at a hearing in May. But just minutes before the plaintiffs were set to begin oral arguments, Jonathan Hitsous, an attorney representing the state, announced its intention to repeal the mandate.
Repealing a mandate is a lengthy process requiring a public comment period and hearings. Hitsous told the court the state’s health department would no longer enforce the mandate during that process.
The documents submitted to the court Tuesday showed that during the public comment period, the NYSDOH received only one comment about the proposed repeal, which was from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
That department urged NYSDOH not to repeal the mandate and instead to amend the regulation to require personnel to be “up to date” with COVID-19 vaccination or to wear a “well-fitting mask” at times when COVID-19 is determined to be prevalent.
The NYSDOH considered those options and rejected them, Gibson said.
But, it indicated it may “continue to seek sanctions against providers based on previously cited violations that allegedly occurred.”
Kim Mack Rosenberg, CHD acting general counsel, told The Defender the repeal was a “tremendous victory” for healthcare workers and the patients they care for.
“However,” she added:
“We cannot forget the workers who were damaged by the mandate. The mandate took a financial and emotional toll on professionals dedicated to patient care. Among other things, they suffered job loss and, in many instances, had to leave New York State in order to find work and support their families.
“Many of those workers may not want to or may not be able to return to New York, even with the mandates lifted. The impact of the mandate will be felt for years to come.”
Plaintiffs still seeking to uphold lower court ruling
When he announced, in May, plans to repeal the mandate, Hitsous also asked the court to overturn the lower court’s original ruling striking down the mandate as illegal and unconstitutional.
Hitsous argued the original lawsuit was rendered moot — the rights and interests of the parties involved are no longer at stake — because the state planned to repeal the mandate.
But Gibson opposed the move to vacate the original ruling, arguing it “leaves open the very real possibility that this constitutional violation could happen again and ruin many more lives.”
In fact, later the same day that Hisous announced the state’s intent to repeal the mandate, the NYSDOH sent out guidance to affected healthcare facilities clarifying that the promises to the court were not accurate, Gibson said.
The letter stated the NYSDOH would stop citing providers for failing to comply with the mandate while its termination was undergoing consideration, but that the department was still seeking sanctions for past violations.
The NYSDOH also reminded providers that they must continue to follow and enforce all applicable state and federal laws — which by implication included the mandate.
Gibson filed a motion on June 8 asking the court to lift the stay and either consider the case on its merits or end the appeal of the original decision.
She also detailed the effect on workers who continued to suffer harm because the state’s voluntary repeal is only prospective, not retroactive.
The state’s attorney did not oppose her motion to repeal the stay. In fact, on June 20, Hitsous submitted an affirmation of the motion.
However because the affirmation was submitted after the deadline set by the court, it was not accepted by the panel, and the stay technically remained in place. Despite this, people interviewed by The Defender said hospitals did begin dropping their mandates.
Gibson told The Defender the state’s submission to the court this week shows why the case remains relevant and is not made moot by the repeal.
“The submission makes clear that this case is not moot as they reserve the right to continue to seek sanctions against people who allegedly violated the mandate before the repeal and the harm that was done still needs to be remedied.”
The court has yet to decide on the motions before it.
Mandates for workers were devastating but the lawsuit made a difference
New York’s COVID-19 mandate for healthcare workers took effect in September 2021, prompting 34,000 medical workers, or 3% of the workforce at the time, to quit or be fired instead of getting the shots.
Then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo first enacted the mandate on Aug. 16, 2021, and the NYSDOH adopted it as a permanent rule under Gov. Hochul on June 22, 2022, even though New York ended its COVID-19 state of emergency on June 24, 2021.
Margaret Florini, spokesperson for Medical Professionals for Informed Consent, told The Defender the mandate devastated thousands of healthcare workers in New York.
She said:
“We pooled money to help people in our lawsuit provide food for their children, to provide birthday presents for their children, to provide Christmas presents for their children.
“Wow. I mean, people have lost their homes that they have raised their families in, and had to sell them. Pensions have been drained, retirements have been drained. There are people in New City who are literally begging because they are so in debt and can’t pay their rent.
“And a couple people in Medical Professionals for Informed Consent have received their final eviction notices, and they are at the point where they will literally be homeless within the next few weeks.”
As New York entered a crisis of healthcare workers, she said many workers crossed state lines to work in Pennsylvania in order to survive, and as a result, Pennsylvania’s healthcare system is booming.
Confidential documents shared with The Defender showed that after Gibson filed the motion to lift the stay in June, several hospitals changed their policies and began re-hiring fired or suspended workers.
The Defender reviewed emails showing that effective July 1, Ascension healthcare system no longer made the COVID-19 vaccine a condition of employment at its New York facilities.
There was an outpouring of gratitude by reinstated workers for the work done through the lawsuit to get their jobs back.
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But, she said, the work is not done. If the lower court’s ruling is upheld, plaintiffs will be able to seek job reinstatement, back pay and other damages in a different process.
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The Most Revolutionary Act 
New York sets precedents for the rest of the US. If New York is fighting internally, it is a reflection of the mentality affecting the rest of us, unfortunately. It doesn’t surprise me that the CHD has picked up the banner for freedom from vaccine mandates, especially since these “clot shots” (Shelby Courtland’s term) have caused so many fatal complications. New York health professionals should know as well as anyone what they do.
The bureaucrats in the upper eschelons of New York’s health administration deserve to lose their health professionals to other places. I feel sorry for the patients they have to abandon.
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As I understand, Katherine, there’s a steady migration of New Yorker to red states where (at least at the moment) they enjoy a higher level of personal freedom.
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” The stay reinstated the mandate, which affected an estimated 34,000 healthcare workers, and perpetuated the ongoing worker crisis in New York’s healthcare system.”
Has anyone noticed that since this Covid fraudemic, people’s lives have been turned so upside down, that they cannot be righted? The Covid fraudemic accomplished exactly what it was intended to accomplish and that was to make millions of Americans forcibly compliant, broke and homeless and then enter skyrocketing rents, outrageous food prices, gas prices, utilities; the whole nine yards, thus creating the perfect poverty storm to hit these shores since the so-called “Great Depression.” What is happening now is even worse than the “Great Depression.” People will never get their lives back. Folks who are dead because they could not even get lab work done on their issues, cannot be compensated by any amount of lawsuits over a fraudemic that was brought to us by an evil so insidious, nothing that is “human” could have been behind it.
I was in housing court yesterday and the sheer magnitude of folks in there facing evictions was just mindboggling. I was taking my landlord to court for repairs, but everyone else was in there for evictions. And of course, 99.9999% where of the Black variety. Go figure!! That Covid fraudemic certainly did us NO favors.
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I sometimes wonder, Shelby, how much of the mass dispossession is deliberate by US banks and oligarchs to increase wealth transfer and how much due to the tanking of the US economy. I suspect an equal measure of both.
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