NEW ORLEANS — Just a week after the city of New Orleans issued an indoor mask advisory, that advisory is now an indoor mandate.
“This wave of COVID has hit our people very hard,” said Mayor LaToya Cantrell as she announced the mandate at a news conference late Friday afternoon.
That wave has the city testing at a 10.7 percent positivity rate. Mayor Cantrell says with an increase in case numbers and deaths, the mask mandate is needed.
“We have been here before. We have seen the movie over again. What was once unpreventable, today is preventable,” said Mayor Cantrell.
To prevent future spread of COVID, in addition to a mask mandate, the city is looking to its 4,000 employees.
“The city of New Orleans has been doing very well at over 71 percent of our employees who are vaccinated but that is not good enough,” said Mayor Cantrell.
To bring that percentage to a hundred, the city is moving away from incentivizing employees to get vaccinated to now requiring them.
“That is effectively immediately,” said Mayor Cantrell. “Vaccines are available right now.”
“We weren’t told about it ahead of time. It was a surprise to see it on the news,” said Aaron Mischler with the New Orleans Fire Fighters Association. “It kind of came out of left field to us that it was going to be mandated.”
Mischler says he started getting calls once the announcement was made. As president of the union Mischler encourages all employees to get vaccinated, but not in favor of a mandate.
“It takes away their right to body autonomy, to force someone to put something into their body,” said Mischler.
That vaccination requirement also extends to city contractors.
“If you want to work for the city of New Orleans get your team vaccinated and do it now,” said Ramsey Green, CAO of Infrastructure for the city of New Orleans.
Mayor Cantrell says to prevent another shut down the city is even urging private sector businesses to do the same, requiring employees to get vaccinated.
“The city of New Orleans can only do so much,” said Mayor Cantrell. “We’re urging the private sector, the business community, to go the extra mile so that we’re all doing everything that we can possible to protect our people.”