White House officials press for mandatory vaccines

August 26, 2021: -On Tuesday, White House Covid officials pressurized the private employers to mandate vaccines at a briefing after the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer for its Covid-19 vaccine.

The other companies respond to its increase in summer in Covid cases by rolling out vaccine requirements for all or part of their U.S. staff, which include Google, Facebook, and United Airlines. But some have avoided vaccine mandates, giving the FDA time to approve a full license and keeping vaccine-hesitant workers to leave.

“If you’re a business, a nonprofit, a state or local leader who waits for full and final FDA approval before you put vaccination requirements in place, now is the time,” Jeffrey Zients, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, said. “You have the power to protect your communities and help end the pandemic through vaccination requirements,” he added.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is permitting vaccine mandates for any personnel returning to the office. The companies provide exemptions following the Americans with the 1964’s Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act. Mandates have sparked controversy from the previous year, with few states restricting mask and vaccine requirements in government, education, and private business.

On Monday, the briefing comes after Biden asked companies and local officials to start imposing vaccine mandates in light of the FDA’s full approval. Biden announced that federal workers would have to submit to weekly Covid tests and wear masks if they were not vaccinated. His administration issued similar directives for the Departments of Health and Human Services and Veterans Affairs.

Vaccination helps us get Covid-19 under control by 2022, according to the chief medical advisor to the president, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“I would like to appeal to the people in the country who are not vaccinated to realize that we have the capability among ourselves to essentially cut down the time frame to getting to the end of this pandemic,” Fauci said during the briefing Tuesday. “Get vaccinated, and the time frame will be truncated dramatically.”

According to the analysis of data from John Hopkins University, the U.S. reported a seven-day average of over 150,000 new coronavirus cases by Monday, an increase of 12% from a week ago. Motivated by the highly transmissible delta variant, some local governments have already begun enforcing vaccine mandates on select businesses.