Fox tightens its vaccine rule, removing a test-out option for N.Y.C. office workers. – The New York Times
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Fox Corporation, the owner of Fox News, told employees on Friday that those working in New York City would have to show proof they’d had at least one dose of the Covid vaccine by Dec. 27, removing the option to get tested weekly instead.
The new policy was in keeping with New York City’s vaccine rule, which Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in early December and which is more stringent than a contested Biden administration rule requiring vaccine mandates or weekly testing at larger employers.
The New York City mandate, which requires on-site workers at all businesses to be vaccinated, is the country’s most sweeping local vaccine mandate and affects some 184,000 businesses.
“Our policy reflects the guidelines of the mandate,” a spokesman for Fox Corporation said in an email on Monday. More than 90 percent of Fox’s employees are vaccinated, the company said.
New York is facing a surge of coronavirus cases. On Friday, the state reported 21,027 new coronavirus cases, the highest single-day total since early in the pandemic, when testing was not as widely available.
New York’s mandate for workplaces requires that recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines receive a second dose, but the policy does not currently require booster shots.
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