FACT CHECK: Is The New York State Legislature Voting On A Bill To Indefinitely Detain Unvaccinated People On Jan. 5, 2022?

An image shared on Facebook claims the New York State Legislature is going to vote on Jan. 5, 2022, on a bill that would allow authorities to indefinitely detain unvaccinated people.

Verdict: False

The bill was not scheduled to be voted on Jan. 5, 2022, according to the New York State Senate website. The assemblyman who introduced it has moved to withdraw the bill from consideration.

Fact Check:

The image is a screen grab of a recent tweet from former Florida congressional candidate Chuck Callesto that reads, “BREAKING REPORT: New York Legislation set for vote on January 5th, 2022 Provides for INDEFINITE DETENTION OF UNVACCIANTED at Governor’s Discression (sic).” Callesto’s tweet has garnered over 7,100 retweets as of press time.

The post appears to be discussing A.416, a bill pertaining to the “removal of cases, contacts and carriers of communicable diseases who are potentially dangerous to the public health.” New York Assemblyman N. Nick Perry first introduced the bill in 2015 and has done so in legislative sessions since then, including the 2021-2022 one, according to the New York State Senate website.

There is, however, no plan to move forward with the bill, and the New York State Legislature is not voting on it Jan. 5, 2022, the date the next legislative session starts. The New York State Senate website shows the most recent action on A.416 – “enacting clause stricken” – took place Dec. 22 and, before that, the most recent action was on Jan. 6, 2021, when it was referred to committee. The bill has never moved past the stage of being referred to committee during any of the legislative sessions it was introduced, according to the New York State Senate website.

The Dec. 22 “enacting clause stricken” action came after Perry said in a Dec. 20 tweet that he would “take appropriate legislative action” to strike the bill. (RELATED: Does The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Contain A $1.3 Billion ‘Bailout’ For The Media?)

“Conspiracy theorists, and those who spread misinformation online are once again trolling on social media, posting concocted stories about A.416,” he tweeted. “To deprive these individuals the ability to use this issue for fuel to spread their fire of lies and mistruths, I will take appropriate legislative action to strike the bill, remove it from the calendar, thus ending all consideration, and actions that could lead to passage into law.”

In early January of this year, Perry posted a statement on his Facebook page addressing A.416. He explained at the time that the bill was “initially introduced to address public health concerns related to the containment of the Ebola virus after it was discovered that Ebola infected persons had entered the United States.”

A.416 does not contain any instances of the word “unvaccinated,” a review of the bill’s text by Check Your Fact found. It is also worth noting that the bill included clauses that outlined time constraints for how long people who are “cases, contacts and carriers of communicable diseases” could be temporarily detained at health facilities by authorities.

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