New Biden Executive Order to Mandate COVID-19 Vaccines for Federal Workers

President Joe Biden’s newest executive order will mandate federal workers get a COVID-19 vaccine, the White House announced Thursday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the order while speaking to reporters in Washington.

The mandate will have “limited exceptions for legally recognized reasons such as disability or religious objections,” she said.

“How this will work is the task force, the interagency task force will provide a ramp-up period, and we expect federal employees will have about 75 days to be fully vaccinated. That gives people more than enough time in our view to start and complete their vaccination series,” she continued.

“If a federal worker fails to comply, they will go through the standard [human resources] process, which includes counseling, and face disciplinary action, face progressive disciplinary action. Each agency is going to work with employees to make sure they understand the benefits of vaccination, and how the vaccines are free, easy, and widely accessible. But it will start to be applied once the executive order is signed.”

Biden had either already signed the order or was planning to sign it later in the day, according to Psaki.

COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

Biden previously mandated the vaccine, but allowed workers who did not want it to remain unvaccinated. However, those workers, and contractors, were required to wear masks, get tested regularly for the virus, and social distance.

Biden later urged private companies to mandate COVID-19 vaccination and impose “strict requirements” on those that did not.

Several federal agencies have already mandated a COVID-19 vaccine, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon.

Three vaccines are being administered in the United States. Two, from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, are being administered under emergency use authorization. The third, from Pfizer, is technically approved, but doses under the approval have yet to become available.

Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which describes itself as the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers nationwide, said in an emailed statement that the union supports members getting a COVID-19 vaccine but that changes like those in the order “should be negotiated with our bargaining units where appropriate” because “workers deserve a voice in their working conditions.”

“Neither of these positions has changed. We expect to bargain over this change prior to implementation, and we urge everyone who is able to get vaccinated as soon as they can do so,” Kelley said.

Psaki spoke several hours before Biden was set to deliver remarks on his administration’s next steps in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden plans to outline a “six-step plan” that is aimed at curbing the Delta variant of the virus after his administration has failed to deliver on his campaign promise to get the pandemic under control.

Some of the steps relate to testing, some relate to mandates, and some relate to ensuring children are protected in schools, Psaki said earlier this week.

When asked about how the new steps would impact Americans’ lives, Psaki said that “it depends on if you’re vaccinated or not.”

“Our overarching objective here is to reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans—there [are] of course, 80 million unvaccinated Americans at this point in time, we want to reduce that number—decrease hospitalizations and deaths, and allow our children to go to school safely. And, of course, keep our economy strong. So what you’ll hear him lay out is a series of additional requirements,” she added on Thursday. “Some of them have been out there—additional ways he’s going to expand access to testing, which is a key way that we can ensure we reduce the spread of COVID, and ways that we’re going to work with states and communities to implement these proposals.”

Zachary Stieber

Reporter

Zachary Stieber covers U.S. news, including politics and court cases. He started at The Epoch Times as a New York City metro reporter.

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