As you might have seen in the recent news that President Biden has put forward his new vaccine mandate plan requiring companies with at least 100 employees to put restrictions on unvaccinated employees to wear masks indoors by December 5, 2021, and to mandate COVID vaccinations or start weekly testing of their workers by January 4, 2022. This move of vaccine mandate has been addressed as unconstitutional by some and is facing strong opposition from the opposition party and several people. According to New York Times, a group of businesses, religious groups, advocacy organizations, and several states, including Louisiana and Texas, filed a petition on Friday with the court, arguing that the administration had overstepped its authority.
What is Vaccine Mandate?
According to WebMD,
"It’s a law that says you must be vaccinated to do certain things like working, traveling, or even attending a concert."
So, ideally, government or other authorities cannot force someone to get a vaccination but they can certainly stop the person from entering buildings or using services.
Vaccination mandates have been always there for some other vaccinations but they are certainly new for COVID-19 because the virus caused the pandemic worldwide and is a serious cause of concern.
What are the conditions of the Vaccine Mandate?
The first rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), covers companies with 100 or more employees and applies to an estimated 84 million workers. Companies must ensure either that their workers are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4 or that they test negative for the coronavirus at least once a week.
Under the OSHA rule, employers must pay workers for the time it takes to get vaccinated and provide sick leave for workers to recover from any side effects. The employers do not have to pay for testing though.
A second rule issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and according to the STAT news,
"The mandate for health care workers supersedes OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard, and employees will not be given an option to test weekly and wear a mask instead of getting vaccinated. The policy will apply to all staff, regardless of their role, and only exemptions for medical and religious reasons will be accepted."
What made Biden Administration put forward the Vaccine Mandate for COVID 19?
When President Biden came to his office, he did not favor vaccine mandates immediately, rather appealed to people to get vaccinated. He even tried several other methods, including incentives for getting vaccinated (calling on State and Local governments to offer $100 to get vaccinated) and expanding paid leave to get families and kids vaccinated.
There are still around 2000 people dying due to COVID each day and thousands testing positive each day.
Therefore, President Biden has put forward his new vaccine mandate plan requiring companies with at least 100 employees to put restrictions on unvaccinated employees to wear masks indoors by December 5, 2021, and to mandate COVID vaccinations or start weekly testing of their workers by January 4, 2021.
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has been working on a rule to enforce this law. OSHA has issued an Emergency Temporary Standard for the program, which will require employers to provide paid time off and sick leave for workers to get vaccinated and recover from potential temporary side effects.
Earlier in September, President Biden signed an Executive Order requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees. Federal workers have until November 22, 2021, to get the COVID vaccines, while federal contractors have until January 4, 2022.
Progress of Mandate:
A US appeals court has temporarily blocked President Biden's plans for a vaccine mandate for businesses, mentioning some constitutional issues with the rule (as of November 6, 2021).
Biden Administration has until Monday, November 8th to respond. Labor Department Solicitor Seema Nanda said, "We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court."
Is Vaccine Mandate a Better Approach to end the pandemic?
Everyone has their own opinion but vaccine mandates are being widely supported while being criticized as well. This past one and a half year has been a disaster with the ongoing pandemic and with the vaccines helping to reduce death rates, vaccine mandates will certainly help.
42% of the US population is still unvaccinated and with a recent spike in deaths and positive cases, vaccine mandates certainly tend to show some hope in ending this pandemic.
Since our platform is open to all opinions, I will let the readers share their views in the comments below.
Here is the video from BBC explaining the whole situation in a nice and precise way:
LET US KNOW YOUR OPINION REGARDING VACCINE MANDATES IN THE COMMENTS SECTION BELOW.
This article is solely written as a source of information and recent events happening related to vaccine mandates.
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