New York City is ending the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for municipal employees.

The City of New York will no longer require municipal employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine approximately one and a half years after this policy was introduced.

In a statement, Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday that “this is the right time to make a decision” as more than 96% of the city’s employees are now vaccinated and 80% of all New Yorkers have received at least two doses of the vaccine.

The change will take effect Friday after the next Board of Health meeting the day before, and also applies to employees of the city’s Department of Education. Those who attend Department of Education schools will no longer need to provide proof of at least one dose of the vaccine.

The vaccination mandate was set in July 2021 and gave City employees the option until the end of September of that year to get vaccinated or wear a mask indoors and be tested weekly for COVID-19.

Some 1,780 employees were fired for failing to provide a vaccination certificate. According to the announcement, these employees will not be reinstated, but can re-apply to their old departments in the city.

On October 24 last year, a New York state judge ruled that the city’s decision to vaccinate public employees was arbitrary and capricious and therefore violated the state constitution. He ordered the city to reinstate city employees fired because of the mandate with wage arrears, but the city has filed an appeal.

But also on that day, Adams canceled the mandate for private sector workers. Last March, the city ended its mandate to vaccinate athletes and theatrical figures.

“It is clear that these mandates saved lives and were absolutely needed at this moment. We are grateful that now that we are out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, we can change more of the rules that have brought us to this point,” he said. Dr. Ashwin Vasan, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.