President Joe Biden on Thursday will announce millions of federal workers must prove they have received a coronavirus vaccine or be forced to submit to regular government testing, stringent social distancing, masking, and travel restrictions.
The anticipated call follows the Pentagon’s direction “all individuals” — regardless of vaccination status — wear a mask indoors at Department of Defense (DOD) installations and facilities in areas of “substantial or high transmission” of coronavirus as defined by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as Breitbart News reported.
AP reports Biden’s broader push to get the nation’s biggest single employer to fall into line and demand vaccinations from 2.1 million civilian federal workers reflects his previously stated belief the resurgence of the virus lies squarely on the shoulders of those who aren’t vaccinated.
Biden’s views on the matter are shared across his administration.
“The pandemic we have now is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Biden said during a visit Wednesday to a truck plant in Pennsylvania, where he emplored the unvaccinated to “please, please, please, please” get the jab.
A day earlier, the president mused “if those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world,” before questioning the intelligence of those who refused the jab, saying “…if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
The administration on Wednesday was still reviewing details of the expected guidance, and significant questions about its implementation and scope remained, according to the AP report.
The administration is announcing the move now with the hope that it will give agencies enough time to plan for implementation before workers return fully to the workplace at the end of summer, alongside parallel CDC demands for masking even for vaccinated people:
The announcement is expected to come as part of broader remarks Thursday that Biden promised would outline “the next steps in our effort to get more Americans vaccinated.”
Even before he makes his public pronouncement, others from across all walks of life are eagerly taking up the administration’s push for mass vaccinations and berating those who think differently.
Breitbart News reported former NBA star and current sports analyst Charles Barkley had strong words on Wednesday for those who have yet to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, saying those who have not yet received the shot are “just a**holes.”
“Yes, I’m vaccinated,” Barkley said, according to CNBC. “Everybody should be vaccinated. Period.”
“The only people who are not vaccinated are just a-holes,” he added.
Barkley, now a 58-year-old TNT basketball analyst, also suggested coronavirus vaccines should be mandatory for players in professional sports leagues.