With COVID-19 case counts remaining low and vaccination rates at record heights, New York City Mayor Eric Adams outlined on March 24, 2022, the next step in the city’s economic recovery and COVID-19 response, with a new measure that will support local businesses and arts and performance venues across the city.
Signed and effective today, Executive Order 62 expands the performer exemption to the city’s private employer vaccine mandates, putting New York City-based performers on a level playing field with performers based outside of the city. The new order will help kickstart the full spectrum of the city’s nightlife economy, which, pre-pandemic, employed nearly 300,000 New Yorkers and generated over $35 billion in economic impact.
Before today, the city’s preexisting private employer vaccine rules generally allowed performers who live outside New York City and athletes who play for visiting teams to perform or play in New York City, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status. This double standard hurt the city’s economy and put New York sports teams at a self-imposed competitive disadvantage. Today’s announcement expands those rules to also cover New York City-based performers and professional athletes — helping to kickstart the city’s economic recovery by supporting live entertainment and performance venues as well as nearby local businesses.
The latest step in the city’s economic recovery and COVID-19 response, today’s executive order follows the mayor’s statement this week on mask requirements for two- to four-year-olds and his decision earlier this month to remove the mask mandate in public schools for K-12 students and suspend aspects of the Key to NYC program.
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