President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday that will require all federal workers under his purview to be vaccinated for protection against coronavirus.
The requirement would change standards established earlier this summer within the executive branch. Currently, federal workers can opt out of getting a vaccine if they agree to submit to regular testing and provide negative test results to their respective departments or employers to prove they are not spreading the virus.
The new policy would eliminate the opt-out provision, requiring employees to get a vaccine if they wish to continue working for the federal government.
The new requirements will affect the vast majority of the 4 million workers employed by the federal government, including those contracted by the feds through outside organizations and businesses. However, there are some exceptions and workers within the federal judiciary and those employed by Congress are among those who won’t be bound by the executive order.
Additionally, the guidelines will not mark a radical departure from existing rules for workers within several departments of the executive branch. Prior to Thursday’s planned announcement, those within the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs had already been required to receive vaccines without the opt-out provision other workers were given.
The requirements will be announced in a speech that Biden will give on Thursday night, in which the president plans to outline a six-pronged approach to how the U.S. will address the coronavirus pandemic moving forward. While much optimism was expressed by the White House earlier this year with the rollout of the vaccinations for the virus, the highly contagious Delta variant, coupled with vaccine hesitancy in many parts of the country, have resulted in a dangerous upswing of new cases and hospitalizations throughout the nation.
Two sources speaking to The New York Times on Thursday said that Biden’s main message later in the day will focus on promoting COVID-19 vaccinations as the best way to move toward a return to pre-pandemic normalcy in the U.S.
Most Americans, by greater than a two-to-one margin, support the idea of mandating vaccines for federal workers, according to an Economist/YouGov poll from last month. Fifty-six percent of respondents in that poll said those employed by the federal government should be required to be vaccinated, while just 26 percent disagreed with the idea.
A myriad of studies has shown that vaccines are safe and effective at reducing the spread of the virus. Only 1 in 5,000 vaccinated individuals, per day, are said to be succumbing to “breakthrough” cases of the virus, a lower rate than initially feared and a much lower infection rate than those who are unvaccinated.
Additionally, other studies have demonstrated that unvaccinated individuals are 29 times more likely to need hospitalization versus those who got their COVID shots. Those who do get infected with coronavirus post vaccination are also less likely to spread the virus to others, as opposed to those who are not vaccinated.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.