Federal mandate takes vaccine decision off employers' hands

Larger U.S. businesses won’t have to decide whether to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 — it's now federal policy, although some important details remain to be worked out

Larger U.S. businesses now won't have to decide whether to require their employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Doing so is now federal policy. President Joe Biden announced sweeping new orders Thursday that will require employers with more than 100 workers to mandate immunizations or offer weekly testing. The new rules could affect as many as 100 million Americans, although it's not clear how many of those people are currently unvaccinated. Large swaths of the private sector have already stepped in to mandate shots for at least some of their employees. But Biden said Thursday that "many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are not fully vaccinated.” The U.S. is still struggling to curb the surging delta variant of the coronavirus, which is killing thousands each week and jeopardizing the nation’s economic recovery.