The Biden Administration today announced much-anticipated requirements for all Federal employees and onsite contractors to get COVID-19 vaccinations and confirm their vaccination status. The White House has also directed the Department of Defense to examine adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the mandatory vaccination list for all active duty military.
“We are now faced with a much more transmissible strain of this virus – the Delta variant,” the White House said in a fact sheet issued late today. “The good news is that we are prepared for this. We know how to stop it: get more people vaccinated,” the White House said.
“Today, the President will announce additional efforts to do just that – imposing requirements to protect our Federal workforce and those they serve, offering additional incentives for vaccination, and making it even easier for people, especially young people, to get themselves and their loved ones vaccinated,” it said.
According to the White House, Federal employees and onsite contractors who do not “attest to being fully vaccinated will be required to wear a mask on the job no matter their geographic location, physically distance from all other employees and visitors, comply with a weekly or twice weekly screening testing requirement, and be subject to restrictions on official travel.”
The White House also stated it would encourage applying similar standards to all Federal contractors, as well as encourage employers across the private sector to follow this model.
Additionally, the White House announced that small- and medium-sized businesses will be reimbursed for offering employees paid leave to get family members vaccinated; will call on state and local governments to offer people $100 each to get vaccinated; and will increase vaccinations among adolescents for kids to go back to school.
