[colinmhayes]

Because athletes and performers are irreplaceable and bring in tourist revenue which the city wants. Firefighters are more easily replaceable and have no effect on tourism. Having competing priorities is common enough, I don't see what doesn't make sense here. The city wants everyone to be vaccinated but it also wants broadway and basketball to be happening more, so they came up with this policy.

[akira2501]

> Because athletes and performers are irreplaceable and bring in tourist revenue which the city wants. Firefighters are more easily replaceable and have no effect on tourism.

I believe this is the most cynical thing I've read yet today.

> I don't see what doesn't make sense here

If the Athletes and Performers are so irreplaceable, then wouldn't you demand they be the most protected by the vaccine, and thus require them to have it before you would require the firefighters? They are so replaceable, afterall...

> so they came up with this policy.

They wanted to force compliance, but then realized there are some people who see themselves as above compliance, so they carved out their own policy in a telling way to kowtow to them.

Dollars are replaceable. People aren't. You can't actually be happy to wrap this cynicism around this, can you?

[kortilla]

> you demand they be the most protected by the vaccine, and thus require them to have it

No, because they will just refuse. That’s the whole problem.

[themitigating]

People are replaceable, resources aren't.

[slaw]

Are there athletes or performers older than 55 so covid vaccination would have positive effect?

[viridian]

There are certainly some stage performers over 55, but it's a small minority. Patti LaPone is 73 and is still on the stage.

[chitowneats]

This is the reason they did it. It's also the reason that most firefighters and others like them do not vote for politicians like Eric Adams. Despite the fact that he's a former police officer.

[spaetzleesser]

Why do firefighters have no effect on tourism? Without them you can not run a city. Same for many other jobs like garbage collection.

[sky_rw]

Well clearly there is an elite class to whom body autonomy is granted, and an underclass who must follow arbitrary and capricious rules. OP appreciates that celebrities and entertainers are our betters and should not be held to the same standard.

[faeriechangling]

Yes exactly. You are allowed to infect people with a deadly pandemic if you're rich, but if you're poor you have to risk personal medical consequences or lose your remote job.

[colinmhayes]

Reality is that not letting Kyrie play basketball cost New York millions, and firing a firefighter doesn’t. Tons of people lose their jobs when entertainment acts close because the performers aren’t vaccinated. Money talks, does that mean celebrities should not be held to the same standard? Not really, it just means that holding them to the same standard would cost more than adams was willing to pay, whether it was the right thing to do or not.

[refurb]

This is the issue. Politicians claim it about health and saving "grandma", but when the number of dollars get big enough, all that goes out the window.

So apparently getting vaccinated is critically important, but not more important than money.

[hotpotamus]

I don't think this mandate had much to do with body autonomy, but job autonomy, which yes, rich people have quite a bit more of.

[throwawaylinux]

An attitude which I've found to be curiously pervasive amongst self-proclaimed egalitarians and socialists.

[VagueMag]

FWIW, there was a vocal contingent of Marxists on Twitter who saw the mandates for the erosion of worker power and rights that they were, and vigorously opposed them. Richard Wolff even came around eventually, as well as Jimmy Dore after having his own personal run-in with the nasty side effects which are all too common with these vaccines.

Sadly, though, some of the most awful scapegoaters of the unvaccinated were indeed on the "left." Noam Chomsky even said they should be excluded from society completely, and if that meant they couldn't even obtain food, well, that would be their problem.

[colinmhayes]

Because they can be replaced by vaccinated people I guess and if one or two can’t that’s ok because they’ve still got all the other ones. Kyrie and the Yankees can’t be replaced.

[koolba]

I’d be willing to bet I could more easily find a team full of people to swing a bat or throw a ball than a couple thousand people willing and able to rush into a burning building.

[colinmhayes]

Can you get people to pay to watch them?

[vineyardmike]

> Same for many other jobs like garbage collection.

Spoken like someone who hasn't been to New York. I love the city, its a fun and vibrant place. But they have some unusual trash policies (primarily they don't have alleys so trash has to be dumped on the main sidewalk) and wherever you go its not uncommon for the sidewalks to be lined with trash waiting for pickup.

[spaetzleesser]

I have been to New York and I have also seen Paris during a strike of garbage collectors. It gets ugly very quickly once collection stops.

The number one thing I have noticed in New York was they seem to make trash collection as loud as possible ideally at 3 in the morning :)

[themitigating]

How would they collect trash efficiently during the day when many streets are packed. Not to mention the extra traffic a slow moving often stopping garbage truck would cause

[throwawaylinux]

Aren't NYC's financials a basket case though? Surely its politicians don't care much about bringing revenue to the city, rather bringing profit to their friends and families and lobbyists. That is what makes more sense here.

[colinmhayes]

My understanding is that a significant number of Yankees were unvaccinated and would not have been able to play home games. There are a significant number of New Yorkers that would’ve been very upset had that come to pass, so politicians acted according to public will and gave them an exception. Does that mean this wasn’t also corruption? No, but it is a reasonable thing to do even without corruption imo.

[throwawaylinux]

You just said it was for revenue to the city though.

I'm not really convinced about this new explanation either. I've seen little to no evidence that upsetting significant numbers of people factored into any other decisions around covid response, including the significant number who were upset by the creation of these double standards.

I'm going to have to stick with pure and simple corruption as the simplest and most likely explanation, unless there is some extraordinary evidence supporting some other less likely one.

[colinmhayes]

I meant revenue that went to businesses/people in the city, like the general ecosystem not just the government. And a large part of the backlash was from people whose jobs were eliminated until full scale entertainment came back. It was a big deal to tons of people.

[throwawaylinux]

And I meant it's just simple corruption because there is little to no evidence that can be produced which supports the fringe theory that politicians care about the city's finances or what is and is not a big deal to the common people.

They care about their finances and those of their friends and lobbyists and donors, so corruption is the simplest and most obvious explanation.

[themitigating]

So you say there's no evidence for one theory then offer your own with no evidence?