Biden announces restrictions for unvaccinated US federal workers
US President Joe Biden says federal workers will be required to show proof of vaccination or submit to new guidelines, as he moves to stem a slowing vaccination uptake.
BY JONATHAN HAWES
USA President Joe Biden has announced in a speech that federal workers will be required to show proof of vaccination, or submit to new guidelines.
Alongside regular testing, these guidelines enforce mandatory mask wearing, social distancing, and travel restrictions in a move to address a slowing vaccination campaign and growing COVID-19 cases in unvaccinated communities.
“I am going to continue to do everything I can to encourage the unvaccinated to get vaccinated,” Mr Biden said.
“Your decision to be unvaccinated impacts someone else. Unvaccinated people spread the virus.”
The strict guidelines apply to the unvaccinated among the federal government’s nearly four million employees, with the administration also encouraging businesses and local governments to adopt similar approaches.
Shelby Blanchett, a certified pharmacy technician who has been administering COVID-19 shots in Central Texas since January, said Biden’s announcement would set a good precedent.
“If all of [the federal workers] are agreeing to get vaccinated and proving they’ve been vaccinated, then it just shows the rest of the country that that’s the right thing to do,” she said.
However, Ms Blanchett said she was less optimistic about how this would translate to Texas, a state which recently prohibited local and state agencies from mandating vaccines or face coverings.
“The people who are not going to come in are the people who already have decided that they’re not going to get vaccinated, no matter what the government says or recommends,” she said.
Other countries such as France have adopted similar strategies to the US, with cinema customers and train passengers having to show proof of vaccination or a negative test, before entering.
Monash University Senior Lecturer of Politics and International Relations Bill Flanik said there was a distinct possibility a more punitive approach towards the unvaccinated could encourage a similar approach among other countries.
Dr Flanik said this would especially be the case in those with “complicated federal systems like Australia, Canada, Germany" who have "significant autonomy at the state and provincial level".
Currently, Australia has made COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for only three groups: high-risk aged-care workers, employees in quarantine hotels, and Paralympic athletes heading to Tokyo.
However, according to a study by The University of Sydney and The University of Western Australia, three-quarters of Australians would support a government requirement to be vaccinated in order to work, travel or study.
