Will Joe Biden's vaccine mandates work?
With legal challenges inevitable, they face an uncertain fate
GO BACK THREE or four months and America's fight against covid-19 seemed to be going pretty well. Vaccination rates were rising, covid deaths were falling and the Biden administration was optimistic the pandemic would recede. The reality has since changed. The highly contagious Delta variant has sent cases surging. They now top 150,000 new cases a day on average, the highest level since January. Countries that once lagged America in the vaccination race have now overtaken it: 53% of Americans are fully vaccinated, compared with 59% in the European Union. Even overcrowded hospital wards seem to have little effect on the numbers of people getting jabbed. On September 9th Mr Biden got much tougher, outlining various measures to increase the proportion of Americans who are fully vaccinated. What opposition will the new vaccine mandates face?
The measures affect firms and employees, and cover 100m people, nearly two-thirds of the American workforce. Employees of the federal government's executive branch, and contractors who do business with it, will have to be jabbed (with some exemptions on health and religious grounds). The same is true of workers at health-care facilities that get government funding. (That expands a directive in August aimed at workers in nursing homes that get federal funding.) But the most striking move involves the private sector. Mr Biden ordered the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a government agency, to issue a rule requiring firms with 100 employees or more to mandate vaccinations for their workforces, with weekly testing for those who opt out. OSHA may take time to promulgate its directive, but opponents are already staking out their ground: several Republican governors have vowed to take legal action. "South Dakota will stand up to defend freedom. @JoeBiden see you in court," tweeted Kristi Noem, the state's Republican governor.
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