By Leshi Adebayo
US President, Joe Biden, on Thursday, made an announcement at the White House, sweeping new federal vaccine requirements which will affect nearly 100 million Americans, in a bid to increase Covid-19 vaccinations and curtail the surging delta variant.
This forms part of a new “action plan” to address recent spikes in coronavirus cases and clear the public’s doubts of his handling of the pandemic which will increase the use of COVID-19 vaccine shots.
He also signed an executive order which requires employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government to be vaccinated with no option to test out and it covers several million more workers.
Biden emotionally laid into the roughly 80 million eligible Americans who are not yet vaccinated, despite months of availability and incentives.
“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us,” he said, all but biting off his words. The unvaccinated minority “can cause a lot of damage, and they are,” he said.
The rules mandate employers with more than 100 workers to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly and it roughly 80 million Americans. Likewise, the estimated 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid will have to be fully vaccinated too.
Recall that two months ago, Biden had prematurely declared the nation’s “independence” from the virus.
Despite over 208 million Americans taking at least one dose of the vaccines, the US is experiencing a 300% increase in new Covid-19 infections daily, which is closely 2½ times more hospitalisations, and nearly twice the number of deaths compared to the same period in 2020 .
Speaking on the current state of the pandemic, he said, “We are in the tough stretch and it could last for a while.”
