Employees who cannot provide proof of vaccination will in future always have to wear a mask and be tested for a possible corona infection once or twice a week, as the White House announced on Thursday. In addition, they should be subject to restrictions with regard to business trips.
The regulation for the more than two million civilian employees of the government therefore also applies to employees of contractual partners who work in government institutions. In addition, the President instructs the Ministry of Defense to check from when the armed forces can impose a corona vaccination obligation.
“We have the means to prevent this new wave of Covid from the fact that we have to close our businesses, schools, our society, as we did last year,” said Biden. According to the White House, a total of four million people – federal employees and local contractors – are “asked to prove their vaccination status”.
Biden also wants to increase the vaccination rate with incentives. He suggested a reward of US $ 100 for each newly vaccinated person. US states, counties and municipalities should use the remaining funds from the stimulus package from March, the US Treasury Department said on Thursday. This should be “an extra incentive to increase the vaccination rate, protect our communities and save lives,” it said.
Vaccination compulsory on Google and Facebook
Several companies, including most recently Google and Facebook, have already announced that their employees are required to be vaccinated. The Democrat Biden has spoken out against compulsory vaccination across the country. However, on Thursday he explicitly backed companies that want to impose compulsory vaccinations for their employees. “We all want our lives to get back to normal and fully vaccinated workplaces will do this quickly,” he said.
Biden urged Americans to get vaccinated quickly. “Vaccinations are the very best defense to avoid getting seriously ill with Covid-19.” Vaccination is the only way to defeat the pandemic. The delta variant of the coronavirus is “highly contagious” and leads to many diseases among unvaccinated people. It is now a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” in the USA, stressed Biden. Around 99 percent of all corona deaths were not vaccinated. “This is an American tragedy. People who don’t have to die die and will die,” Biden said.
The president warned, citing experts, that the number of new corona infections in the United States will continue to rise before there is any improvement. Because of the delta variant, the number of new infections per day rose again to around 65,000 on average. A month ago the average was around 13,000. More than 300 people are currently dying from an infection every day.
“A shame to waste this blessing”
Biden said the government had more than enough vaccine for all Americans. “It’s a shame. It’s such a shame to waste this blessing,” he said to the conscience of those who refused to be vaccinated. “If you are indeed unvaccinated, then you are a problem – for yourself, for your family, and for those you work with.”
In the USA, a good 49 percent of the population of around 330 million people have so far been fully vaccinated, and around 57 percent have received at least the first injection. More than 50 million doses shipped by the government to the states have not yet been used, data from the CDC shows. Experts warn that many doses may expire soon if the responsible FDA does not extend the expiration date.
