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The new measure to make vaccinations mandatory for some groups of people comes as the Biden administration struggles to encourage the population to get jabs amid the raging Delta variant and the slowing vaccination rate.
U.S. President Joe Biden will be presenting on Thursday, 9 September, a six-point plan aimed at containing a COVID-19 Delta strain nationwide surge, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has said. One of the points of the plan include mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations for all federal workers, as Reuters has reported, based on an anonymous source.
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Some other measures to be announced on 9 September include an increase in COVID-19 diagnostic tests, “keeping schools safely open”, and changes to the way COVID-19 patients are treated. The White House spokeswoman said that despite the initial success, the fight against the pandemic is not over. “We have more work to do, and we are still at war with the virus and with the Delta variant. So we’re going to build on that work”.
The new plan to be unveiled will reportedly put an end to the current practice, where federal workers could avoid getting anti-COVID jabs if they didn't want to or could not be vaccinated. They used to have the option of undergoing regular testing instead.
With cases surging, US President Joe Biden to launch 6-point plan against Covid-19 https://t.co/cxNMJ3R3cl
— ST Foreign Desk (@STForeignDesk) September 9, 2021
The new measure to make vaccinations mandatory for some groups of people comes as the Biden administration struggles to promote jabs amid the raging Delta variant and the slowing vaccination rate.
According to 8 September data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), some 177 million, or 53.3%, Americans were fully vaccinated, while 62.7% had received only one jab.
95 percent of US counties now seeing "high" COVID-19 transmission rate: CDC data https://t.co/9EOOIDH7Vr pic.twitter.com/ducRQvwhDG
— The Hill (@thehill) September 8, 2021
These numbers fall short of even the most optimistic estimates of how many people should get the shots to achieve herd immunity. In addition, some states and counties in the U.S. show levels of vaccination significantly lower than the average across the country, making these communities more prone to witnessing hospitalizations due to COVID-19-related complications.
At the same time, the U.S. started in the middle of August to administer so-called “booster shots”– third injections of the vaccine to improve the immune response in people who might need it. Some 1.5 million US residents have already used this opportunity.
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