President Biden Issues Sweeping Vaccination Mandate

WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, President Biden ordered sweeping new federal vaccine requirements for as many as 100 million Americans — private-sector employees as well as healthcare workers and federal contractors — in an effort to curb the surging COVID-19 Delta variant, the Associated Press reported.

Biden sharply criticized the tens of millions of Americans who are not yet vaccinated. “We’ve been patient. But our patience is wearing thin, and your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, adding that the unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are.”

The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. The roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated.

Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government, with no option to test out, which affects several million more workers.

Biden announced the new requirements as part of a new “action plan” to address the latest rise in coronavirus cases and the stagnating pace of COVID-19 shots.

Just two months ago, Biden prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus. Now, despite more than 208 million Americans having at least one dose of the vaccines, the U.S. is seeing about 300% more new COVID-19 infections a day, about two and a half times more hospitalizations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same time last year. Some 80 million people remain unvaccinated.

“We are in the tough stretch, and it could last for a while,” he added.