President Joe Biden said Tuesday that his administration is considering requiring all federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 amid a rise in cases driven by the highly contagious delta variant.
“That’s under consideration right now,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question after delivering remarks to members of the intelligence community. “But if you’re not vaccinated you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
The move comes one day after the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that it will require many of its frontline medical workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the first federal agency to do so.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough said the agency is mandating vaccines “because it’s the best way to keep Veterans safe, especially as the Delta variant spreads across the country.”
“Whenever a Veteran or VA employee sets foot in a VA facility, they deserve to know that we have done everything in our power to protect them from COVID-19. With this mandate, we can once again make — and keep — that fundamental promise,” McDonough said in a statement.
Starting Wednesday, employees will have eight weeks to be fully vaccinated, the agency said in a statement.
Biden did not elaborate on any details of the plan. Administration officials told the New York Times that a federal mandate could be similar to the one recently enacted by New York City, which requires that all municipal workers, including police officers and teachers, either get vaccinated for COVID-19 or submit to weekly COVID-19 tests. California has followed suit with a similar mandate.
The Department of Justice recently determined that federal law does not prohibit private businesses or public agencies from implementing vaccine mandates, even if those vaccines are allowed under emergency use authorization.
The move also comes after more than 50 major medical organizations called for mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations of U.S. health care workers.
The joint statement was issued by 56 groups representing doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health care employees. The organizations include the American Medical Association, American Nursing Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and American Public Health Association.
The statement asserted that getting vaccinated “is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first.”
“As we move towards full FDA approval of the currently available vaccines, all health care workers should get vaccinated for their own health, and to protect their colleagues, families, residents of long-term care facilities and patients,” the statement says. “This is especially necessary to protect those who are vulnerable, including unvaccinated children and the immunocompromised.”
The urgent call comes as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths are on the rise again, predominantly among the unvaccinated. Fueled by the more contagious delta variant, the seven-day average for new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. as of Friday had climbed to 47,455 — four times higher than it was a month earlier. Meanwhile, just 49% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 30 states have immunized less than half their populations.
President Biden said in a statement about the CDC’s updated masking guidance that he “will lay out the next steps in our effort to get more Americans vaccinated” on Thursday.
“Vaccinations are free, safe, and effective to every American,” Biden added. “They’ve been available to every adult in this country for more than three months — at locations within 5 miles of 90% of the US population.”
CNN reports that Biden could announce the policy in Thursday’s remarks.
