What you need to know about President Joe Biden’s new mandates on the Covid vaccine

President Joe Biden’s latest vaccination campaign is the most aggressive effort his administration has ever made to bring the raging coronavirus pandemic under control.

Critics see the president’s move as a reversal of his previous promise to avoid vaccination warrants. Federal health officials, however, believe this is the next step in the fight against the highly contagious delta variant, which kills more than 1,500 Americans every day, according to CNBC analysis of university data. Johns Hopkins, and filling hospitals with unvaccinated pockets across the country to the brim.

“We will protect vaccinated workers from unvaccinated colleagues,” Biden said Thursday when announcing the plan. “We will reduce the spread of Covid-19 by increasing the share of the vaccinated workforce in businesses across America.”

The multi-pronged approach affects hundreds of public and private companies and tens of millions of American workers. It makes vaccines mandatory and eliminates testing options for federal government employees, including those in the health care sector, and calls for stiff penalties for those who fail to comply.

Here’s what you need to know about Biden’s latest offer to get more Americans vaccinated.

Federal employees and contractors who work with the government are facing renewed vaccine mandates and will no longer be able to regularly test for Covid.

“If you want to work with the federal government and do business with us, get vaccinated,” Biden said. “If you want to do business with the federal government, vaccinate your workforce.

Healthcare workers also face strict mandates. The president has ordered all health care facilities that receive federal Medicaid or Medicare funding to require vaccines for their workforce without the option of testing.

Previously, the Biden administration imposed vaccines only on employees of U.S. nursing homes receiving federal funding. Some states, including New York and Maine, had previously mandated vaccines for healthcare workers.

The new rules will affect more than 17 million healthcare workers in more than 50,000 hospitals and healthcare facilities in the United States

“If you are looking for care in a healthcare facility, you should be able to know that the people who care for you are vaccinated,” Biden said. “Simple, straightforward, period.”

The president also ordered all staff in federally administered Head Start programs to be vaccinated. The order extends to schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Department of Defense, affecting around 300,000 people in total, according to Chalkbeat, a news agency that covers education.

Despite the scale of the president’s push, most American workers, over 80 million, will still have the opportunity to prove they are not carriers of the virus by undergoing weekly Covid tests.

To accelerate the pace of the daily firing, which slowed after a peak in mid-August, the president ordered the Ministry of Labor to create a new rule requiring any company with more than 100 employees to impose vaccines for their employees or weekly Covid tests. for workers who cite religious or health reasons for not being vaccinated. However, these reasons for opting out are likely to be considered more by employers in the future.

The new rule will be implemented by the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. OSHA can issue a temporary emergency standard if it proves that employees are in danger and that the proposed rule can avoid that danger.

Employers will also be ordered to give employees paid time off to get vaccinated. This applies to both the public and private sectors.

“No one should lose their pay to get the shot or take a loved one for the shot,” Biden said.

Most Americans support workplace vaccination mandates, with 62% of Americans supporting the idea, according to an August poll by USA Today and Ipsos.

Yet among the 29% of U.S. voters who are not vaccinated, 83% say they don’t plan to get the vaccine, according to a new CNBC poll.

Employees who fail to comply with the new mandates could face a range of consequences, including layoff, as companies feel pressure to align.

Businesses will be subject to a penalty of $ 13,600 per violation of the OSHA rule, although the implementation and enforcement of the new rules may take some time. OSHA has seen a steady decline in membership and currently provides one inspector for every 83,000 workers, according to the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States.

In his announcement, Biden asked why 80 million Americans still hadn’t received the injections after they were made free and accessible and approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“What more to look forward to?” What else is there to see? Biden said. “We have been patient, but our patience is running out.”

Biden called on those who run large entertainment venues, sports arenas and cinemas to require vaccination or proof of a negative test for entry. New York and San Francisco already require proof of vaccination for activities such as eating indoors and attending movies and entertainment venues, New York requiring proof of at least one dose and San Francisco requiring proof of complete vaccination.

Biden also called on doctors across the country to “contact unvaccinated patients … and make a personal appeal to them to get vaccinated.”

About 75% of American adults have received at least one dose of a Covid vaccine and about 54% of all Americans are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts are still divided on the percentage of a population that must be vaccinated for the population to achieve herd immunity, although estimates vary between 70% and 90%.

“It’s not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you,” Biden said.