A trader works on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., August 10, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
The New York Stock Exchange announced Wednesday that it will require full Covid-19 vaccination for access to its iconic trading floor as of Sept. 13.
The stock exchange said exemptions are being granted for medical or religious reasons. It is also expanding its onsite random testing to include vaccinated personnel.
The NYSE already requires that people visiting to ring the bell, and those coming in for IPOs, show proof of vaccination. Wednesday’s announcement extends the requirement to those who work on the floor.
The move follows a bigger trend in corporate America as the spread of the highly contagious delta variant roiled corporate plans to return more employees to the workplace. More than a dozen large U.S. corporations, including Walmart, Google, Tyson Foods and United Airlines, have recently announced vaccine mandates for some or all of their workers.
Covid cases are on the rise with the U.S. reporting a seven-day average of more than 108,600 new cases per day as of Sunday, up 36% from a week earlier, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reversed its policy, recommending that fully vaccinated people begin wearing masks indoors again in places with high transmission rates.
In March 2020 at the height of the pandemic, the exchange shut down its historic trading floor and moved fully to electronic trading. It was the first time the physical trading floor of the Big Board has ever shut independently.
The exchange started reopening partially to some brokers at the end of May last year.
The NYSE is operated by the electronic trading group Intercontinental Exchange, which acquired it in 2012. The exchange is located at 18 Broad St. in lower Manhattan.
