Surgeon General Murthy on Biden’s Vaccine Mandate: ‘A Lot of Businesses Are Actually Relieved’

Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that a lot of businesses were “relieved” that President Joe Biden mandated COVID vaccines.

Murthy said, “Let’s talk about the announcement and what prompted it. You know, the announcement that the president made includes a number of measures that will help us address the Delta variant. The requirements we just heard about are one part of it. But they’re only one part of that. Also, increasing our testing capacity shore up our hospitals and health care systems struggling with delta. What the president and all of us have said as public health leaders from the earliest part of this pandemic is that we have to use every lever of government, and we all in the private sector have to do everything we can to tackle this virus. The requirements the president announced are an example of that. Earlier in the summer, the president announced requirements for federal workers to attest the vaccination.”

He continued, “Not only will federal workers be required to vaccinate with an exemption for medical or religious purposes but also health care systems that do business with Medicare and Medicaid, 17 million health care workers will be required. 80 million business workers who have, you know, 100 employees or more will also now be required under the OSHA rule, which is a process to get vaccinated or get tested regularly.”

Murthy added, “A lot of businesses are actually relieved that these are going into place. We’ve heard a lot of feedback from the business roundtable and others that this will help us create safer workplaces.”

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