New York City firefighters are protesting the vaccine mandates imposed by the mayor and plan to take their demonstration to Bill de Blasio’s home on Thursday.
Following another protest regarding this same issue earlier this week, the mayor approved a vaccination mandate coercing all public employees of the city to receive a coronavirus vaccination by Nov. 1, or they would be either fired or compelled to resign, NPR reported.
Andrew Ansbro, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, spoke to Fox News in an interview with Brian Kilmeade.
While the president expressed to Kilmeade that he himself was vaccinated, many of the other firefighters were not. “On November 1st, the mayor and the commissioner will send home, could be up to 45% of New York City fire department,” said Ansbro.
Ansbro told Kilmeade that they had spent the day preparing the lawsuits against this mandate and that he believed this was never about health, but rather about getting people to comply with the mandates.
“Hold the Line:” THIRD of NYC Firehouses will SHUT if vaccine mandate goes through – huge protest swells
President of the staff association for the NY Fire Department (FDNY) Andrew Ansbro has told Fox News that 30-40% of NYC’s firehouses will be forced to shut down if the pic.twitter.com/LsE4pJcUHQ
— 💫Queen of Seventeen 1️⃣7️⃣🥃❤️🇺🇲✝️ (@AreYouAwaQe) October 28, 2021
“Well, I am sure you saw the way the CDC changed their story multiple times, same thing with the fire department. It was you can come back to work after 3 days of no symptoms, 10 days, don’t test, get a test. When I took office in August we were begging the department to test us on a weekly basis,” said Ansbro. “They refused.”
Ansbro said the department did a bad job getting its members tested early on in the pandemic, saying that regular testing has only been instituted in the last couple of weeks.
“It was over a year. Finally, they started a testing program 2 weeks ago, and to their dismay, they found out not many of us were sick. So at that point in time, the testing program ended. And this was a city-wide program.” Ansbro said during the Fox interview. “If this was about our health, testing would have started last August.”
Chants of “hold the line” as UFA President Andrew Ansbro encourages unvaccinated members to show up to work Monday despite the mandate. pic.twitter.com/RHMh2oZ7AE
— Gwynne Hogan (@GwynneFitz) October 28, 2021
The president estimated that around 70% of the department’s workers had already been infected with COVID over the course of the pandemic. With more than half of the firefighters vaccinated and the other half developing natural immunity from already contracting the virus, they would be covered from further severe cases, according to NPR. (RELATED: NIH Director Violated Agency Policy By ‘Intentionally” Misrepresenting Natural COVID Immunity Study, Watchdog Alleges)
“We would love to keep the testing option,” Ansbro said for those unvaccinated, per the Fox interview. “The department has actually been giving us antibody tests since last year, so they already have antibody information on a lot of our members. At this point in time, they’re just refusing to use that as a method to give the exemption.”
The association president went on to tell Kilmeade that they are finding that roughly half of members that are currently sick are vaccinated, and the other half are not. Ansbro said that he and his wife have been vaccinated, but was not immune to contracting the virus, ” We let our guard down and went to a concert. My wife got sick. Five days later, I got sick.” Ansbro continued, per the Fox interview, “We were vaccinated, we had mild symptoms. But again, I have not talked with a single firefighter that’s been sick for a second time that had bad symptoms.”
The Uniformed Firefighters Association did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.