Biden man­dat­ing ALL EMPLOYERS with 100+ work­ers to require Covid jab or week­ly tests

100 mil­lion Amer­i­cans affect­ed: Biden to man­date ALL EMPLOYERS with 100+ work­ers to require Covid jab or week­ly tests, AP says

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 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 against vac­ci­na­tion, Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion has dis­cussed mak­ing boost­er shots avail­able to those who are already vac­ci­nat­ed, and the pres­i­dent may touch on the sub­ject in his speech on Thurs­day afternoon.

Source : AP