“Despite 80 percent of adults in New York being fully vaccinated, we are once again being force-fed another statewide mandate announced without notice, with little information, from a podium at a press conference. Gov. Hochul is using the same heavy-handed process that we grew all too familiar with – and tired of – under her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo. 

Vaccination rates are increasing, yet the state’s response is reminiscent of days prior to the development of a vaccine when COVID infection rates were dramatically higher. Putting more costly restrictions on small businesses will do more harm than good to the job-creators still trying to regain their footing after the lockdowns of 2020.

Executive Chamber edicts and policy-by-press release aren’t making the situation any better. The staffing crisis we’re seeing in our hospitals is a self-inflicted wound exacerbated by Gov. Hochul’s employee mandate that offered no flexibility to frontline workers and removed caregivers from care settings. There is no denying that it has severely compromised the state’s health care system at the exact moment it can least afford it.

We are at a point where New York state should be shedding mandates, past the need for more sweeping executive actions and moving forward. Unfortunately, today we took several steps backward.”