President Joe Biden will instruct all employers with more than 100 workers to force their staff to get vaccinated or submit to weekly Covid-19 tests, the Associated Press reported. Companies refusing will face stiff fines.
The new order, reported on Thursday by the Associated Press ahead of a speech by Biden, will affect roughly 100 million American workers. Earlier, White House officials told the media that Biden has also signed an executive order mandating vaccination for all 2.5 million federal employees and other outside contractors, with no option for testing.
The White House cannot normally compel private companies to force drugs or testing on their employees, but the Biden administration’s order will be given through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which will issue a rule in the near future. According to the AP, companies refusing to toe the line will face fines of $14,000 per violation.
Some 80 million Americans have not been vaccinated. Speaking at a press conference earlier on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that the Biden administration’s “overarching objective here is to reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans.”
Biden is expected to formally announce the new policy at his speech later on Thursday afternoon, as part of a “six-pronged” plan to curb the rising number of Covid-19 cases across the country. Other measures will likely include increased free testing, an increase in federal fines for airline passengers refusing to wear masks, and a call on entertainment venues to only grant entry to vaccinated people.
More than 177 million Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, but vaccine efficacy wanes with time, and the Delta variant of the virus has been shown to infect the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. Despite the apparent resilience of the Delta variant to vaccination, Biden’s administration has discussed making booster shots available to those who are already vaccinated, and the president could touch on the subject in his speech on Thursday afternoon.
