Biden's sweeping vaccine rules requiring shots or regular testing will take effect from January 4, White House says
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
- The Biden administration's vaccine rules will kick in on January 4, the White House said.
- Two rules will cover about 101 million workers in the US government and private companies.
- Employees of firms with more than 100 staff will have to be fully vaccinated, or take weekly tests.
The White House announced on Thursday that the Biden administration rule that will require vast swathes of the population to be fully vaccinated for coronavirus or undergo regular testing will take effect on January 4.
The rule is due to apply to the entire federal government workforce, and anybody working for a company with more than 100 employees. The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will roll out the requirement, the White House said in a Thursday press release.
Employers affected by the rule will have to ensure their workers are either fully vaccinated or conduct COVID-19 tests on at least a weekly basis. The rule will cover about 84 million workers, according to the release.
Separately, a rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will require that all health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid be fully vaccinated. The requirement applies to more than 17 million workers across roughly 76,000 hospitals and health care facilities, and also goes into effect on January 4
The two new rules place about two-thirds of the American workforce under some kind of vaccine requirement, the White House said. The mandates give President Joe Biden new avenues for boosting vaccination across the US. Nearly 67% of US adults have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, but Biden has continued pushing for mass vaccination, saying it's the fastest way to safely return to pre-pandemic norms.
The rules' timing also comes at a critical juncture for the economic recovery. Growth in the third quarter slowed to the slowest pace of the pandemic era, signaling the Delta wave brought the US rebound to its knees. Without new stimulus boosting the recovery, vaccination is among the few ways to quickly revive the economy.
An administration first detailed the OSHA rule in a briefing which was reported by outlets including CNN and The Washington Post. The unnamed official said the full detail of the rule would be released Friday, per The Washington Post.
The broad shape of the plan was announced in September and has been finessed by officials since then. President Joe Biden had already required federal workers and contractors be fully vaccinated. Yet the OSHA and CMS rules represent a major push into the US private sector for the administration.
It's meeting it's fair share of resistance, particularly in Republican-led states. Nineteen states including Texas, Georgia, and West Virginia filed lawsuits on Friday to stop Biden's vaccine mandates from being enforced. The lawsuits target Biden's requirement for federal employees to be vaccinated, and argue the rule is an overextension of federal power.
States with their own worker-safety agencies for private-sector employees can hinder the rules' rollout. California, Arizona, Michigan, and 19 other states can delay or tweak Biden's rules if they so choose, and have 30 days to implement their own versions, Bloomberg reported.
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