The four million federal employees in the United States will either need to be vaccinated or be tested regularly and wear the mask continuously, the White House said Thursday. US President Joe Biden also wants to push military personnel to get vaccinated.
As the spread of the Delta variant of Covid-19 raises fears of a new wave of the epidemic in the United States , US President Joe Biden has taken a series of measures to encourage vaccination in the country, including the obligation to millions of federal employees either to be vaccinated or to comply with a series of constraints, the White House said in a statement released Thursday, July 29.
Unvaccinated federal employees will therefore be required to wear the mask continuously, even in areas where Covid-19 circulation is low, and to undergo regular tests, once or twice a week. They will also be limited in their movements.
“We are not completely out of the woods,” the US president said in a speech at the White House. For the first time in months, he entered the room where reporters were waiting for him with a black mask, which he removed before starting to speak.
Without going as far as the outright vaccination obligation , it is however a change of course for the Biden administration which until now refused to associate any idea of constraint with vaccination, insisting more on the responsibility. individual and messages of encouragement. The federal state employs four million people, including two million civilians.
“I know people talk about freedom” but “with freedom comes responsibility”, insisted the Democratic president. “It’s exhausting to think that we are still fighting” against the pandemic, he admitted.