Biden announces new mandates for vaccines in the United States

President Joe Biden has said he will order all executive employees, federal contractors and millions of healthcare workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, and that his administration will enact rules requiring large employers private to impose injections or tests.

The new measures are Biden’s response to a resurgent Covid-19 pandemic driven by the delta variant of the virus and by tens of millions of Americans who have refused to be vaccinated. Federal employees who fail to comply could be fired, the administration said, and private employers could be fined.

Biden has also delivered some of his harshest criticisms to date of the 25% of American adults who have yet to be vaccinated, saying they are dragging the pandemic that has claimed more than 650,000 lives in the United States.

“My message to unvaccinated Americans is, what more to look forward to? What more do you need to see? ” he said. “We have been patient, but our patience is running out. And your refusal has cost us all, so please do what it takes.”

His latest plan, the president said, “would fight those who block public health” and “also protect our economy and make our children safer in schools.”

The guidelines mark a significant hardening of the administration’s stance on vaccination mandates amid the delta variant wave that threatens to overwhelm hospitals in parts of the United States

The federal workforce mandate faced a mixed initial backlash, with business and labor groups issuing cautious responses and saying they would work with the administration.

As part of Biden’s new approach, the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration will develop emergency regulations requiring companies with 100 or more employees to require staff to be vaccinated or tested every week and give paid time off to get vaccinated.

Employers could face fines of nearly $ 14,000 per violation, an official said. It is expected to go into effect in the coming weeks, the official said.

“It’s not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in a White House speech – a blow to elected Republican officials, including some governors, who have said otherwise.

“It’s about protecting yourself and those around you. The people you work with. The people you care about, the people you love. My job as president is to protect all Americans,” Biden said.

Health workers

Biden will also require the vaccination of more than 17 million healthcare workers in Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other healthcare facilities, a significant extension of an existing requirement for nursing homes.

The federal government will require vaccination of staff in the Head Start and Early Head Start programs, teachers and staff in Department of Defense schools, and teachers and staff in schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education.

Biden will ask states to require vaccines in all schools – a call that will certainly not be heard in deeply Republican parts of the country – and in major entertainment venues to require customers to prove vaccination or a test negative. He said he would increase weekly shipments of monoclonal antibodies to states by 50% this month.

He also said he would relax regulations regarding Covid’s economic disaster lending program, to boost economic recovery by making it easier for small businesses to borrow. He also said he would streamline the paycheck protection program loan cancellation requests.

The executive branch is well positioned to demand vaccination of staff, especially since the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech vaccine has received full approval, rather than just emergency clearance, according to Glenn Cohen, professor of law at the Harvard Law School. The OSHA rule is likely to face most legal challenges, with litigation likely over whether the agency is overstepping its authority.

Rapid tests

The United States will spend nearly $ 2 billion to purchase 280 million rapid tests as part of an effort to expand testing and use the Wartime Defense Production Act to expand test manufacturing. The administration will also send 25 million tests to community health centers and food banks.

Biden said Walmart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Kroger. Supermarkets Co. will sell rapid in-home Covid-19 tests at cost for the next three months.

In addition, the president is implementing a plan to begin booster injections as early as September 20, subject to approval by health authorities. Officials expect to start giving Pfizer-BioNTech boosters first.

The administration also said it would double fines for people who refuse to wear a mask when traveling between states, including on planes.

Biden’s order for federal workers goes further than the requirements he announced on July 29, which included an option for federal contractors on-site to choose testing over vaccination. Now, Biden is forcing vaccines on entrepreneurs.

One of its decrees, released Thursday for contractors, calls for the new requirement to be in place for contracts concluded from October 15. It will apply to all workplaces “in which a person works or in connection with a federal government contract or contract-like instrument.”

“Limited exceptions”

There will be “limited exceptions” to Biden’s new federal worker term, including for religious objections or for people with disabilities, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday. Employees who refuse “will face progressive disciplinary action” up to and including termination, she said.

Psaki said it would take effect when Biden signs it, with a “ramp-up” period of around 75 days. The decree for federal workers, also released Thursday, called for the guidelines to be released within 7 days.

Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, expressed support for the vaccines but also said the new order should be negotiated with labor groups.

“Workers deserve a voice in their working conditions,” Kelley said in a statement.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, a voluntary group, called the move misguided. “Immunization should be encouraged by education and encouragement, not by coercion,” President Larry Cosme said in a statement.

The US Chamber of Commerce said it will “carefully review the details” of the announcement and push for companies to have “the necessary resources, guidance and flexibility.” The business roundtable praised Biden’s “vigilance” and said she “looks forward to continuing to work with the administration and leaders at all levels of government to defeat the pandemic.”

The Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and the National Institutes of Health are all implementing previously announced vaccination requirements that cover 2.5 million workers, according to the administration.

While the White House lacks the power to require vaccinations nationwide, it stressed that an emerging patchwork of vaccine requirements for employers was a key factor driving the a new wave of vaccinations.

Surge in cases

The push to force big employers to act follows a dismal August payroll report, which showed a much lower than expected number of 235,000 jobs added during the month. Employers are struggling to find workers with record numbers of job openings and may face attrition if they force vaccinations.

Leana Wen, professor of public health at George Washington University, praised elements of the Biden plan, like the requirement for vaccines for large private employers, but said more measures were needed.

“It’s great. It protects the workers,” she said. “But I would like the federal government to go much further when it comes to planes and trains and other places over which it has direct authority.”

Eric Toner, a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, described Biden’s actions on Thursday as efforts to increase immunization and mask compliance.

“They cover the things that I think are the most important, which is mandatory vaccination, as long as it is legal, and mandatory masking, as long as it is legal,” he said.

Biden focused on tackling the pandemic in the first few months of his presidency, and ahead of the July 4 recess, he spoke optimistically about the country declaring its “independence” from the virus after a dramatic drop in cases and death. But the vaccination campaign has slowed, in part because of misinformation spread online and opposition from Republicans, even as restrictions were relaxed.

The United States recorded 176,000 new cases on Wednesday, well above the roughly 10,000 a day seen in June when the pandemic was on the decline, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In the United States, 2,143 more people died from the virus on Wednesday.

Vaccinations have increased over the past month. But Biden pointed out that this leaves a quarter of eligible Americans – some 80 million people, he said – without a shot.

“The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing,” he said. “That 25% can do a lot of damage, and it is.”