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More than 24,000 city workers — including cops and firefighters — will be forced to stay home Monday when Mayor Bill de Blasio’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city employees goes into effect.
Despite a 14-percent bump in the number of Big Apple government workers who have gotten at least one shot since the Oct. 20 mandate was announced, thousands would rather be placed on unpaid leave than get jabbed.
That includes, roughly, more than 8,000 cops, 3,700 FDNY employees, and nearly 2,000 sanitation workers, according to statistics.
Data from City Hall as of Saturday 8 p.m. showed that 91 percent of the city workforce have adhered to the mandate to get the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Members of the FDNY have been among those vehemently opposed to de Blasio’s order, which included a Friday 5 p.m. deadline for a $500 bonus for getting the shot.
On Saturday, 26 fire companies across the five boroughs were shuttered due to manpower shortages.
A day later, 20 companies were still shut down, sources told The Post.
The Police Benevolent Association, the NYPD’s largest police union, has also mounted legal challenges to the mandate, though so far to no avail.
“Thousands” of unvaccinated NYPD members, however, can continue working after filing medical and religious exemption requests, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea on Friday.
Those who applied for the exemption will be able to work with pay — while required to mask and complete weekly testing — as the NYPD’s Equal Employment Opportunity Division reviews the applications.
Hundreds of city workers protested the mandate on Thursday at a rally, organized by FDNY unions, outside Gracie Mansion in Manhattan.
De Blasio announced on Oct. 20 that city workers would have until 9 a.m. Monday morning to have received at least one COVID shot or they would be “furloughed.”
At that point, there were 46,300 city employees who had not been vaccinated, with 24,200 still not in compliance as of Saturday night, the records show.
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