FDNY Firefighters Assoc. Pres.: Vaccine Mandate Is ‘a Political Game … and the Stakes of the Game Are the Lives of New Yorkers’

EXCERPT:

ANSBRO: "It’s unnecessary. Why would the mayor or the commissioner send firefighters home 600 days into this pandemic when there wasn't a problem last year, when we asked them to test everybody and they refused? You know, this is a political game they’re playing right now and, you know, the stakes of the game are the lives of New Yorkers. Right now, as of last year's statistics, there is, on average, 65 fires a day, structural fires. There is 1,400 life-threatening medical emergencies every day in New York City. There’s over 80 heart attacks every day. You know the survivability of heart attack victims in New York city is 32 percent? If you increase response — if you increase response times by a few minutes to a heart attack victim, that is without question the difference between life and death. If you’re going to take a third of the ambulances off line, if you'll get a third of the engine companies off line, you will without question increase response times and increase the rate of death."