Unvaccinated members of the NYPD will soon have to provide a negative test for COVID-19 or be sent home without pay, The Post has learned.
The new guidelines, which fit Mayor Bill de Blasio’s executive order on coronavirus protocols for city workers in response to the highly contagious Delta variant, go into effect Monday.
According to police policy obtained by The Post, civilian and uniformed members of the NYPD who have not yet received a punch must take a PCR test every seven days and post the results to an internal monitoring system.
The test is due to be out of service, but the NYPD will soon make 15 free test sites available, the note says.
According to the note, the department will not accept quick tests.
Testing requirements occur when the NYPD struggles to vaccinate more than half of its just under 35,000 uniformed officers and about 18,000 civilian members.
The vaccination rate was 47% on August 20th. The NYPD has not provided any updated figures.
Last month, the NYPD issued a stricter masking policy for unvaccinated police officers, forcing police officers without vaccination evidence on file to wear essentially a face that was covered at all times.
The policy also requires masks when an officer “interacts with members of the public,” regardless of the state of vaccination.
But days later, the city’s top police and other police officers were seen violating the new rules, the latest example of the NYPD ignoring coronavirus guidelines since the pandemic began.