New York Police Department employees will not be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, Commissioner Dermot Shea said Tuesday.
"It won't be mandatory," he said, per the New York Post. "It'll be similar to the flu vaccines that we do."
The department's first shipment of vaccines will arrive at the end of this month or the beginning of January.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said, for now, the plan is to focus on education and to try to get people to want to get vaccinated.
"With everything that we're doing with the vaccine, the best approach is to educate people and get them bought in — answer the questions. There's a lot of valid questions," de Blasio said. "The more this is voluntary, the better off we are.
"We're still talking about how we want to approach the city workforce, and there's different elements of the city workforce who do different things," he said.
The city's largest police officer's union, the Police Benevolent Association, opposes mandatory vaccination, saying, "In the PBA's view, it's a personal medical decision that each member should make in consultation with his or her own doctor," according to a statement made to the Post.
Various people have opposed vaccinations from fear of side effects to opposition to government interference in their personal lives. Others believe the virus to be hoax or oppose vaccines in general.
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