Biden says vaccination warrants are the only way to beat Covid

President Biden on Thursday called on private companies to force coronavirus vaccinations on employees, asking them to take the initiative as he announced last month to demand that 80 million American workers get vaccinated suffers a long rule making process and may not go into effect for weeks.

The president, speaking at a construction site outside of Chicago, said encouraging Americans to get vaccinated had helped, but it had not gone far enough to fight the pandemic.

“Even after all of these efforts, we still have over a quarter of people in the United States who are eligible for vaccinations but have not been vaccinated,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s why I had to evolve towards the requirements.

He said the warrants were not his first instinct, but the demands “were already proving they worked.”

Mr Biden said in September he would use the full force of his presidency to push some 80 million American workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, reaching the private sector to force all companies with more than 100 workers to demand the vaccination or weekly tests. . He ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to draft a new rule that would make those requirements enforceable, a process that White House officials said would take at least three or four weeks.

The president said on Thursday the rule would be put in place quickly, but officials familiar with the process said it would likely take several weeks.

In the meantime, Mr Biden has sought to shift the responsibility to business, which he said would help pull the United States out of the pandemic: “Business has more power than ever to change the arc of this pandemic. and save lives. “

Mr. Biden chose to visit the Chicago area in part because it is home to United Airlines, one of the first major carriers to require snapshots for its 67,000 US employees. Other airlines followed with similar requirements, including American Airlines, Southwest, JetBlue, and Alaska Airlines. The president spoke at a site controlled by Clayco, a construction company that required vaccines and tests for its employees.