U.S. to lift most COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal workers, foreign travellers

The Biden administration will end most of the US federal COVID-19 vaccine requirements by the end of next week when the national public health emergency for the coronavirus ends, the White House said Monday.

The vaccine requirement for federal workers and federal contractors, as well as foreign air travelers to the US, will end on May 11. The administration also began the process of lifting the shot requirement for Head Start educators, health workers, and non-citizens at US land borders.

The requirement is one of the last remnants of a series of more coercive measures taken by the federal government to promote vaccinations as the deadly virus rages, and ultimately marks the latest look at how President Joe Biden’s administration is treating COVID-19 as a routine, endemic disease.

“While I believe that the vaccine mandate has had a beneficial effect, we are now at a point where we think it is important to withdraw the requirement,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. The Associated Press was.

Extremely polarized at the time and numerous legal challenges – many of which were successful – to the vaccination requirements were imposed by Biden in successive waves at the end of 2022 as the country’s vaccination rate rose despite the emergence of new transmissible variants of COVID. -19.

More than 100 million people at one time were covered by Biden’s mandate, which was announced on September 9, 2021, because the delta variant of the virus sickened more people than at any time until the pandemic. Biden rejected the requirement before taking office in January, but resolved to change the behavior of what he saw as a public slice that refused to be inoculated, saying it was endangering the lives of others and the nation’s economy. return.

Federal courts and Congress have struck down Biden’s vaccine requirements for large employers and military service members.

The standing mandate for many employees of the National Institutes of Health, the Indian Health Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs — which imposes its own requirements on health care staff and others independent of the White House — will remain in place while the agencies review their own requirements, the administration said.

‘COVID continues to be a problem’

More than 1.13 million people in the US have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began more than three years ago, including 1,052 people in the week ending April 26, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is the lowest weekly death toll from the virus since March 2020.

“COVID continues to be a problem,” Jha said. “But the health system or public health resources are better able to respond to the threat that COVID poses to our country and do so in a way that does not cause problems of access to care for Americans.”

He added, “Some of these emergency powers are no longer needed in the same way.”

More than 270 million people in the US, or just over 81 percent of the population, have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the CDC.

As the federal mandate expires, Jha predicts that some employers, especially medical facilities, may decide to maintain their COVID-19 vaccination requirements. He noted that the hospital he works for has had a flu vaccine requirement for employees for 20 years.

Jha dismissed concerns that the end of the international traveler vaccination requirement would increase the risk of new variants from overseas entering the US.

Jha said the U.S. is already covered by a travel genomic surveillance program, which, for example, tests for different strains of the virus in airplane wastewater.

“We think we’re better able to recognize that new variants are emerging in the United States and respond effectively,” he said. “And I think that’s why we need a vaccine mandate for travelers who don’t need it right now.”