Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced a new vaccine mandate for city employees on Tuesday. All employees will either have to show proof of vaccination, or be forced to undergo weekly COVID-19 tests, if they want to retain their jobs.

The mayor’s announcement came as L.A. County has reported a sharp uptick in the daily average testing positivity rate, which is now over 5%, after dipping to below 1% in June. Many new cases are among the unvaccinated population.

The city may struggle to enforce the mandate, however, since the vaccines do not yet have full Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, which has caused other cities to delay the implementation of proposed mandates.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Los Angeles will require city employees to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing to show they have tested negative, Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Council President Nury Martinez announced Tuesday. Garcetti, announcing the new requirements, cited “an alarming spike in cases among our city workforce.”

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Many details about the plan remain to be worked out, but city departments will be directed to gather and report information about whether their employees are vaccinated by Aug. 13, Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar said.

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San Francisco and Pasadena have also announced future vaccination requirements for their employees; both cities have hitched their requirements to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granting formal approval to at least one of the COVID-19 vaccines now under emergency authorization.

It is unclear what positions the various unions representing city workers will take on the mandate. The Times reports that the firefighters’ union opposes vaccine mandates, but SEIU Local 721, which represents some city employees, backed the mayor.

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a new vaccine mandate on California health care workers and state employees.

Garcetti was recently named by President Joe Biden as the next U.S. Ambassador to India, pending Senate confirmation.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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