Most federal covid vaccine mandates to end May 11
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The Biden administration will end its requirements that most international travelers, federal workers and contractors, health care workers and Head Start educators be vaccinated against covid effective on May 11 — the same day it terminates the pandemic-related public health emergency. Wp Get the full experience. Choose your plan ArrowRight The vaccine requirements, first ordered by President Biden in late 2021, had sparked protracted legal and political battles, with Republicans saying the mandates were unnecessary — a position recently joined by a growing number of Democrats and public health experts as the pandemic threat has receded.
The requirement for federal workers has been blocked by federal courts since January 2022, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed the mandate for international travelers last week, considering anyone who received a single dose of a Pfizer or Moderna vaccine after Aug. 16 as fulfilling it. However, the Supreme Court last year turned away a challenge to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for health workers.
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“Our Administration’s vaccination requirements helped ensure the safety of workers in critical workforces, including those in the health care and education sectors, protecting themselves and the populations they serve,” said a prepared statement from the White House. “.. We also put in place vaccination requirements for certain international travelers to slow the spread of new variants entering the country.”
The Health and Human Services and Homeland Security departments will start their own processes to end vaccination requirements for Head Start educators, workers at health care facilities that take Medicare and Medicaid, and some noncitizens at the land border, according to the White House statement.
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Public health experts in 2021 had clamored for the requirements, saying that they were necessary to confront vaccine hesitancy and increase protections against a virus that was linked to tens of thousands of deaths per month.
“Patients shouldn’t have to worry that being in the hospital puts them at risk for serious disease. The best way to do that is to ensure that everyone who comes into contact with patients is vaccinated,” Ashish Jha, who later became the Biden administration’s coronavirus coordinator, wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post in July 2021.
But the requirements — which were mirrored by similar mandates from local officials and businesses — prompted resistance, with some federal workers, health care employees and other individuals and groups suing to fight the rules or being fired for refusing to comply. The vaccines also proved unable to prevent infection and transmission as the virus evolved, and public health experts have acknowledged that prior infections — not just vaccination — can provide protection against covid.
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“A continuation of the vaccine mandate is no longer needed. Our country is in a very different place,” Katie Smith Sloan, president and CEO of LeadingAge, an organization representing nonprofit long-term care providers, said in a statement. “And, whether or not a mandate is in place, there is no question that COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective, and the best defense we have against the virus.”
More than 81 percent of Americans are vaccinated against covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although interest in the vaccine and its boosters has waned over time; fewer than 17 percent of Americans have received the most recent bivalent booster shot.
Rachel Roubein contributed to this report.
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Source: The Washington Post
