Public officials touted the success of the mandate in raising vaccination rates. When it was first announced by then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Aug. 16, only 70 percent of nursing home staff had received at least one vaccine dose and 77 percent of hospital staff were fully vaccinated.
In a shift, the governor’s office on Tuesday estimated the total number of hospital workers affected by the mandate at 519,000 statewide, up from its estimate of 450,000 when the mandate was announced.
“People who are on the fence benefit from these mandates, bluntly, as a way to make this decision,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has also required that everyone working in New York City public schools have at least one vaccine dose by next Monday.
While the rates were high among health care workers as a whole, however, low vaccination totals at some facilities sent a warning signal. As of Sunday, fewer than 65 percent of staff members had received at least one vaccine dose at several nursing homes, including The Plaza Rehab and Nursing Center in the Bronx, and Hopkins Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare in Brooklyn, state data showed.
At the Erie County Medical Center in Buffalo, 20 percent of staff at its affiliated nursing home, Terrace View, were placed on unpaid leave on Monday for refusing to get vaccinated, a spokesman said. The hospital said it was doing its best to make up for the reduction by transferring staff in from other facilities, reducing beds at the nursing home and suspending some elective surgeries at the hospital.
The medical center had been predicting 400 staff departures, but in the end, only 276 unvaccinated workers were placed on leave. Still, the facility remained in crisis mode, because in the weeks before the mandate came into effect, the hospital already had 400 job vacancies and a record number of patients.
The hospital was having trouble, said Tom Quatroche, its president, because it could not discharge patients to nursing homes and rehab centers that were experiencing their own staff shortages.