US Prez announces new vax mandates to turn Covid tide
Washington DC: Blaming unvaccinated Americans for preventing the US from overcoming the Coronavirus pandemic, President Joe Biden has imposed stringent new rules, including taking a few punitive measures, to vaccinate millions of workers as the country witnessed a dangerous spike in COVID-19 cases.
The Biden administration has been successful in vaccinating a significantly large population of the country, but the fact that about 25 per cent of eligible Americans -- about 80 million people -- who remain unvaccinated pose a threat to the gains made by him in the fight against COVID-19.
The US, the worst-hit nation by the pandemic, is reporting an average of 151,500 new cases per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, hovering around levels seen in late January. An average of 1,500 people are dying from COVID-19 every day in the US, Johns Hopkins data shows.
We can and we will turn the tide of COVID-19, Biden said in an address to the nation from the White House on Thursday.
It'll take a lot of hard work and it's going to take some time. Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated even though the vaccine is safe, effective and free.
The president had promised a "summer of freedom" from the virus, but the Delta variant has seen infections surge.
Biden laid out a six-part plan intended to get more people vaccinated, allow schools to reopen safely, increase testing, improve care for patients and boost economic recovery.
As part of the plan, the president announced a new requirement for federal employees to get a Covid vaccine, with no option for regular testing. He also signed an executive order extending the requirement to contractors that work with the US government, impacting a total of 2.1 million employees.
At the centre of Biden's new plan is directing the Labour Department to require all businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure their workers are either vaccinated or tested once a week. Companies could face thousands of dollars in fines per employee if they don't comply.
The order will affect about 80 million workers.
"My message to unvaccinated Americans is this: What more is there to wait for? What more do you need to see? We have made vaccinations free, safe and convenient.
"The vaccine is FDA approved. Over 200 million Americans have gotten at least one shot. We've been patient but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us," Biden said. "So please, do the right thing, he said.
Other rules that Biden directed include a doubling of fines for passengers on planes who refuse to wear a mask, invoking the Defence Production Act to accelerate the creation of rapid at-home testing kits, deploying healthcare workers to areas experiencing surges in cases and increasing the weekly pace of shipments of free monoclonal antibody treatment to hospitals.
