Federal mandate takes vaccine decision off employers' hands
Larger U.S. businesses now won't have to decide whether to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Doing so is now federal policy. President Joe Biden announced sweeping new orders Thursday that will require employers with more than 100 workers to mandate immunizations or offer weekly testing.
The new rules could affect as many as 100 million Americans, although it's not clear how many of those people are currently unvaccinated.
Large swaths of the private sector have already stepped in to mandate shots for at least some of their employees. But Biden said Thursday that "many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are not fully vaccinated."
The U.S. is still struggling to curb the surging delta variant of the corona virus, which is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation's economic recovery. Per Biden's order, the millions who work as employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government won't have the option to get tested instead of taking the vaccine. The order also requires large companies to provide paid time off for vaccination. The Associated Press reached out to a wide range of companies on Thursday. Many didn't have immediate responses while others noted that they already require vaccinations.
Walmart, the nation's largest private employer, was one of the first major companies to mandate vaccines for some of its workers. Walmart said in late July that it was requiring that all workers at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, as well as its managers who travel within the U.S.; be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4. But the vaccine mandate excluded frontline workers such as cashiers, who according to the company have a lower vaccination rate than management.
