New York suspends weekly COVID testing requirement for unvaccinated state workers

No longer must thousands of unvaccinated workers for the state government undergo weekly COVID-19 testing as a condition of employment, a reversal that took effect Tuesday.

An email from state Office of Employee Relations director Michael Volforte was sent June 3 to agency personnel managers announcing the suspension of the requirement, which had gone into effect Oct. 12 under Gov. Kathy Hochul. 

Volforte said in that email, provided by office spokeswoman Erin McCarthy: “until further notice, employees do not need to test weekly pursuant to the state testing program.”

About 130,000 state workers are affected by the test-or-vaccinate announcement.

The state has paid for the testing program, which was estimated last year to have cost $62 million. 

The suspension of the vaccinate-or-test requirement does not change mandates for certain professions that deal with vulnerable populations, such as nurses, who must be vaccinated. Hundreds lost their jobs or faced disciplinary proceedings last year for failing to get vaccinated.

In an email Wednesday to Newsday, McCarthy wrote: “As of Tuesday, June 7, testing requirements for unvaccinated State employees with a test-out option are no longer in-effect. Given the wide availability of tests, agencies should encourage all employees to continue testing through home tests or at testing locations, and if they test positive, are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, or feel that they have been exposed to COVID-19, they should continue to follow the latest isolation and quarantine guidance from New York State Department of Health.”

Volforte's announcement does not affect those who work for the New York City government, which since last year began rolling out vaccination as a condition of employment — no test option allowed — and now the entire workforce must be vaccinated with only a handful of approved exceptions for medical or religious reasons. 

Hundreds of municipal workers were fired, and more still face the same fate, because they've refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19. 

Mayor Eric Adams' press office did not return an email Wednesday asking whether the city would reconsider its vaccination mandate in light of the state policy reversal. 

Nor has the city announced plans to change its private-sector mandate, which requires all employers to check each worker's proof of vaccination, keep records of who is and who isn't vaccinated, and "must exclude from the workplace any worker" who's unvaccinated, according to the city's order, which dates back to the last weeks of Bill de Blasio's time as mayor.

The city is the nation's only jurisdiction with such a requirement, but the city isn't enforcing the mandate, according to businesses big and small. Adams and his staff have refused to say when or whether the city plans to start. He promised at an event in April that his staff would provide statistics on enforcement, such as the number of inspections; but as of Wednesday, despite repeated requests over the weeks, no information has been provided.