reporter: and here in new york city, with rising vaccination rates and the fading delta variant, some encouraging news, the city s covid test positivity rate is now below 1%. kendis and lindsey? gabe, thank you. we have much more on the new york mandate, joining me right now is james mccarthy of the fdnc, also the uniformed fire officer s association president. james, good morning to you and thanks for being with us here. we re hearing concerns that response times could increase as a result of this. how do you see the real impact? for example, halloween weekend, do you expect calls to go up around this time and will people see longer response times this weekend? well, it s the purview of the department to staff the fire companies and the fire houses, and when the weather gets colder we generally have more fires and emergencies. so there is an increase in demand of on the fire department during this time of year but not necessarily for
pension unit, we have significant numbers of people retiring, not hundreds but some of our members retiring and that would impact some of the fire houses and fire companies. but i don t know about 20%. that s kind of a statistic that people are putting out there. and that s speculation. before we let you go, there are six firefighters who were recently suspended for taking a truck, and allegedly going to threaten a state senator over the mandate. he apparently said that his staff was told if their home was on fire, that the firefighters wouldn t respond. do you have any response to that? i mean, do you think suspension is enough for that kind of behavior? not familiar with the details of that interaction, nor of that case, but i do i am aware of the commissioner giving them punishment. and they ve been suspended while that investigation is under way. and i d rather not comment about them, what they did, until we
commissioner does go on to write that despite these actions by some of the department will continue to respond to all calls for help that come our way. and as i was saying, they ve actually had multiple different plans in place that we re told are actually basically they re tapping into that, including reshuffling some of the resources to make sure all of those calls go answered. but authorities here saying that there have been some companies, again, these are basically units within the fire house that have, that are not operating right now. but that does not necessarily mean the fire houses all together are closed here. and authorities are very clear on the fact that no fire houses have actually closed up at this point. now, in terms of the latest vaccination numbers, if you look at them, jim, the police department, for example, about 84% of those officers as of yesterday are vaccinated and are actually complying with that mandate and when it comes to
we will show up and fulfill our oath. if the mayor or commissioner sends them home that s on them. reporter: you will be ready to work. yes. reporter: the mayor doubled down. protest. go protest. people want these jobs. anyone else who doesn t want to do the job anymore, someone else will step up and fill it. reporter: if unvablghtd first responders are set home monday, according to theifier fighters union, up to 20% of fire houses would have to close, impacting the citi ease ambulance fleet and response times. but the mayor says he has a contingency plan in place, norah. o donnell: we ll be watching closely, mola lenghi, thank you. tonight a frightening story of rage in the air, a first class passenger punched a slight attend in the face twice, forcing the flight from new york to southern california to make an emergency landing in denver wednesday night. crb s errol barnett has more.
3:00. cbs evening news live from washington coming up next. we are streaming 24/7 on cbsn bay area . captioning sponsored by cbs breaking news, strengthening your immunity, the decision and new guidance tonight on boosters that could protect your health. the breaking news from the c.d.c., plus vaccine mandate fallout, could some fire houses in new york city close because of the big apple s new rules? queen goes to the hospital, the breaking news out of buckingham palace. the breens, the human remains found in a nature preserve are confirmed to be that of brian laundrie. we have th latdeai ntem of congress, will former trump advisor steve bannon face criminal charges after the house votes to hold him in contempt? the attorney general weighs in.