President Joe Biden's announcement on Thursday of sweeping new COVID-19 vaccination and testing mandates represents a change in the administration's policy.
Gone is the carrot, replaced by the stick.
"The writing was on the wall," Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, Professor of Medicine and infectious disease expert at UCSF, told KCBS Radio’s Patti Reising and Jeff Bell following Biden's speech on Thursday.
"I think, initially, the Biden administration was a little bit more tentative in the way they approached the pandemic. This really represents the most broad, sweeping and, I would say, firm approach to really getting as many people vaccinated as possible," Dr. Chin-Hong said.
The U.S. Department of Labor will now mandate businesses with at least 100 employees to require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly testing. Biden will also sign an executive order mandating federal contractors and executive branch employees to be fully vaccinated, as will workers at healthcare facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding.
The White House estimated about 100 million Americans are affected by these new rules, as the delta variant continues to spread throughout the country and disproportionately impacts unvaccinated people.
As of Thursday, 53.4% of all Americans and 64.5% of adults were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Children under the age of 12 are still ineligible, outside of clinical trials, to receive any of the three vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for full and emergency use.
Vaccination rates vary wildly from state to state and county to county, and Dr. Chin-Hong said Thursday’s announcement isn’t enough on its own to increase vaccination rates. He said he thought Biden was banking on the federal government’s nationwide presence starting a “domino effect,” with private businesses then following the government’s lead.
"Because so many people work for the federal government or are in the military in many, many jurisdictions, it really transcends geography and belief," Dr. Chin-Hong said. "But it's not enough. We're talking about now, we have just about 50% of folks fully vaccinated in the U.S. We probably will increase that with these new mandates and once the vaccines get approved for children under 12, but we really need to aim higher. And I hope this will lead to more of a multiplier effect, so to speak."
Dr. Chin-Hong said Thursday’s announcement largely represented the extent of enforcement available to the Biden administration, because public health decisions are largely made by local governments and states. Still, since transportation falls under the federal government’s purview, Dr. Chin-Hong said he wouldn’t be surprised to see vaccine mandates for interstate air travel and Americans flying internationally.
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