It looks like that what has been around for a few months now, it’s getting official on Thursday as Associated Press claims that Biden is about to sign an executive order for vaccine mandate in federal workers on Thursday.
The Associated Press and CNN report that Biden’s order will mandate vaccinations for employees of the executive branch and contractors that do business with the federal government. Reports say affected workers won’t have the option to opt out with regular coronavirus testing.
In an announcement that is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, Biden should reveal the vaccine mandate decision in an effort to battle and slow down the most recent Covid-19 wave. Reportedly, the decision for vaccine requirement will be a step further bringing completely new Covid-19 plan on federal level.
In the last couple of weeks, the country has been fighting with the spread of the Delta variant known to be by far more contagious compared to anything before. United States is reporting around 150,000 cases on a daily basis, the highest since the January wave.
The spread of the virus is mostly seen in unvaccinated people and those are directly blamed for the most recent wave while the hospitals are overwhelmed with patients operating at low to no ICU beds availability.
While vaccinations have picked up slightly since a mid-summer lull (Bloomberg reports that daily vaccination rates have increased from about 500,000 a day in mid-July to about 800,000 a day), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that just 53.3% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated and the rate of the spread of the virus is currently “high.”
The White House officials believed that after the FDA full approval on the Pfizer vaccine the vaccination process will see an increase, but that didn’t happen so far. Now the officials are considering different kinds of measures to force unvaccinated to get the shot.
Although the number of vaccines given per day has increased, experts believe that is out of fear of the recent wave and not because of the Pfizer approval by the FDA.
White House officials once again rushed with their announcement when the informed the public that booster shots will be available for everyone starting September 20. However, Dr. Fauci corrected them, to at least that’s how things look like at this point, that only Pfizer has approval for booster dose, while Moderna’s vaccine is not expected to get the booster dose approval until that date.
That means that those who got the Moderna’s vaccine will have to wait a little bit more before they are allowed to get the booster dose and increase their immunity.
A recent Washington Post-ABC poll shows that while a majority of Americans approve of Biden’s response to the pandemic, support is waning. The poll says 52% of Americans approve of his response, compared to 62% in June.
