NEW YORK — All 350 of the FDNY’s fire units were “fully operational” as of Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, despite fears that the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate would lead to staffing shortages. 

Eighty percent of the city’s firefighters have gotten vaccinated, while 90% of its EMS workers have received their shots, de Blasio told WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Friday morning.

“Just spoke earlier with our Fire Commissioner Dan Nigro, and I want to let you know that the Fire Department, as of today, all fire units, fully operational, there are none out of service,” he said. “We’ve also seen the numbers in the Sanitation Department and NYPD go up again in the last 24 hours.” 

De Blasio also continued to contradict firefighter union representatives who claimed that dozens of firehouses closed earlier this week due to staffing shortages.

In response to a question from Lehrer citing reports that some individual fire companies within firehouses were out of service, the mayor said none of the department’s firehouses were ever fully shuttered.

“Throughout, the firehouses have been open,” he said. “Now, what I’m saying, in addition to all the firehouses being open, all units are operational. That’s actually a stronger position than we are in normal times when, typically, some units are out of service for either training or maintenance.”

Nigro and other FDNY officials “very smartly moved people around as needed and used the resources they have to get the impact and protect people,” de Blasio explained. 

“And we did see a very, very inappropriate action by a number of individuals to call in sick when they weren’t really sick, from the firefighters,” he said. “[But] let’s be clear, most firefighters, most EMS folks absolutely did the right thing. It is a few who called in sick wrongly, falsely, and endangered everyone else in the process.” 

Since the city announced the mandate for municipal workers on Oct. 20, more than 26,000 employees have gotten vaccinated, including approximately 4,000 workers who got their first shots after the mandate took effect on Monday, the mayor noted.