Some are speculating that De Blasio is doing this to screw incoming Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday announced a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all private businesses in New York City — one that will take effect days before he leaves office and with the city already recording among the highest vaccination rates and lowest infection rates in the nation.

There’s probably a measure of malice here, but Adams is likely to just sweep this away or let it fail a court challenge before shrugging it off. 

This is about a guy who already tried to run for president (while being wildly unpopular in New York City) prepping a run for governor.

De Blasio, whose mayoralty ends at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, declared making vaccines compulsory for private businesses a “preemptive strike” against an expected surge in COVID infections this winter amid the emergence of the Omicron variant.

“We’re going to announce a first-in-the-nation measure,” de Blasio said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Hizzoner added that the mandate is aimed at “maximizing vaccination quickly, so we can get ahead of Omicron and all the other challenges we’re facing right now.”

The ‘tell’ here is going on MSNBC to tout this thing as a first-in-the-nation measure.

Bill de Blasio nuked New York City. He doesn’t have much to brag about but with short lefty attention spans, he plans to use this as his calling card for a failed run for the big job in the state. Cuomo was popular because of his abusive COVID policies, why can’t a fake Italian imitate him? 

It’s gonna be a long slog for a guy whose favorability rating is up there with pond scum.

But the numbers are even worse for de Blasio, the term-limited mayor who is considering a run for governor.

Only 25 percent of voters view him favorably compared to 56 percent who have an unfavorable opinion — a net negative of 31 points.

De Blasio was even toxic among Democrats, where only 36 percent of registered Democrats statewide viewed him favorably, while 47 percent viewed him unfavorably.

He can only go up with an abusive illegal vaccine mandate. At least that’s what he thinks.