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WASHINGTON (AP) – Hoping to set a model for employers nationwide, President Joe Biden will announce on Thursday that millions of federal workers must prove they have received a coronavirus vaccine or submit to regular testing and strict social distancing, masking, and travel restrictions.
A person familiar with the president’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm details that had not yet been publicly announced, pointed out that the new guidelines are not a vaccine mandate for federal employees and that those who decide not to be vaccinated are not. at the risk of being made redundant.
The new policy amounts to a recognition by the Biden administration that the government – the country’s largest employer – must do more to increase slow vaccination rates, as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations rebound, in large part thanks to the spread of the more infectious delta variant.
Biden has blamed the resurgence of the virus on the shoulders of those who are not vaccinated.
“The pandemic we have now is an unvaccinated pandemic,” Biden said during a visit to a truck factory in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, where he urged the unvaccinated to “please, please. please, please, please “get vaccinated. A day earlier, he thought that “if those other 100 million people were vaccinated, we would be in a very different world.”
On Wednesday, the administration was still reviewing the details of expected directions, and important questions about its implementation and scope remained. It was not clear whether the president would issue similar requirements for the military and how federal contractors would be affected. The administration is announcing the move now in the hope that it will give agencies enough time to develop their own guidelines and implementation plans before workers fully return to the office.
The announcement is expected to be part of broader remarks Thursday that Biden promised to outline “the next steps in our efforts to get more Americans vaccinated.”
The individual said the conversation around the new vaccine guidelines has been going on for some time and is intended to provide an example for private companies to follow as they prepare for the workers’ return this fall. But this is only the administration’s latest policy change during a week of new coronavirus mitigation efforts, as the White House grapples with an increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide due to the delta variant and groundbreaking infections in Americans vaccinated.
On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs became the first federal agency to require vaccinations for its health workers. And on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed their masking guidelines and said all Americans living in areas with high or high rates of coronavirus transmission should wear masks indoors, regardless. their vaccination status.
With the latest CDC data showing Washington, DC to be facing substantial transmission rates, reporters and staff were once again in hiding in the White House on Wednesday.
The new vaccination guidelines for federal employees reflect the reality that Biden’s national vaccination campaign has failed to meet its goals. Public opinion seems to have hardened around vaccines, with a recent poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finding that among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say they probably won’t, and 45% say they definitely won’t.
“Doing more of the same just won’t work,” said Dr Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner who has become one of the leading public health commentators on the pandemic.
“This is the next logical step,” Wen continued. “If you want to go to work and interact with other people, then you have to be sure that you don’t have COVID, and you can do that either by getting vaccinated or by getting tested. “
About 60% of American adults have been fully immunized. Biden missed his goal of having 70% of adults get at least one shot by July 4. The latest figure is 69.3%.
Federal workers and contract workers are scattered across the country, including many states where vaccine skepticism is high. New York University public service professor Paul Light has suggested that the new guidelines from the Biden administration could help increase vaccination rates in states where there has been significant resistance.
“You can’t throw a stick without touching food in many parts of the country,” he said.
Light noted that the government’s influence extends far beyond the people it employs directly. Federal contractors and grant recipients will need to assess how they will adapt to Washington’s immunization requirements.
“If the federal government said that everyone who works for the government directly or indirectly should be vaccinated, that’s a huge footprint,” Light said.
He estimated that the federal government directly employs 2.2 million full-time public servants, over 1.4 million active-duty military personnel, and approximately 500,000 US Postal Service workers. Employees of private contractors working on federal jobs number about 5 million, and another 1.8 million people are employed under federal grants.
While the administration is hoping the new guidelines will increase vaccination rates, the fact that Biden immerses himself directly in the midst of the ongoing political debate over vaccines could backfire if it further fuels GOP criticism and distrust of it. the vaccine among the president’s detractors.
The AP-NORC poll found that opinions on vaccinations are sharply divided across parties, with Republicans much more likely than Democrats to say they haven’t been vaccinated and certainly won’t or probably not, 43% to 10%.
Indeed, South Carolina GOP Representative Ralph Norman, who resisted new mask requirements on Capitol Hill, hinted at the fight for the new guidelines.
“Requiring individuals to provide proof of vaccination would be a massive intrusion into the doctor-patient relationship and the individual’s privacy,” he said in a statement.
The Biden administration could also face legal challenges to the latest guidelines.
The federal workplace is governed by layers of rules and regulations, so private employers as well as state and local governments will review the White House vaccination policy to indicate how far they can go without triggering resistance. employees or even legal action.
But while the Justice Department and the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have both said there is no federal law preventing companies from requiring vaccinations as a condition of employment, the litigation Workplace mandates will certainly follow, said Sharon Perley Masling, an employment lawyer who heads the COVID-19 task force at Morgan Lewis.
“It’s a really tough question for employers,” Masling said. “We have seen employers explore a whole range of options, from encouraging vaccinations to inciting vaccination, to compulsory vaccination for new hires or for everyone.”
Among the examples of large companies, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines require new employees to show proof of vaccination. Goldman Sachs requires its employees to disclose their immunization status, but does not require that they be vaccinated.
If an employer establishes a strict requirement, employees can request an exemption for medical or religious reasons under federal civil rights laws.
According to the EEOC rules, the employer must provide “reasonable accommodation which does not pose undue hardship for the operation of the employer’s business”. Some accommodations could include masking at work, social distancing, working a modified shift, regular COVID-19 testing or the ability to work remotely, or even offer reassignment.
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