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On Thursday, the White House released a statement and said the Biden administration is imposing a new emergency standard for businesses with at least 100 employees to either mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers or require weekly testing. However, the new mandate is called an emergency temporary standard. COVID-19 action plan and will be implemented by the OSHA (Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration). The White House suggested the new requirement will impact more than 80 million workers in the private sector. The emergency standard stipulates that these employers must choose either full vaccination or weekly testing for their employees within 30 days. The White House said they must implement the mandate within 60 days by January 4, 2022. They could face fines up to $14,000 per employee if employers don’t follow the emergency standard.

A simple company-wide headcount will be used to determine if employees have at least 100 employees, and employees who work in multiple locations will be included in the count. The rule doesn’t say who will bear the cost of the weekly testing option. Moreover, some other local, state or federal rules may require businesses to pay for tests for employees who are exempt from the vaccine mandate. The timing of this new standard coincides with the busy holiday shopping season, which is already straining some businesses experiencing bottlenecks in the global supply chain. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, “The implementation of such vaccine mandates would be a big mistake. The best thing we can do to get people back to work is to make sure everybody is vaccinated”.

President Biden has also called for COVID-19 vaccine or testing mandates for millions of more federal contractors and workers at health care centers that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement. More than 80% of adults have at least one COVID vaccination shot as of this week and Biden said on Wednesday that around 60 million Americans older than 12 years of age remain unvaccinated. Biden said, “A year ago we were heading into a Thanksgiving where public health experts were advising against traveling or gathering with family and friends. Later this month our tables and our hearts are going to be filled thanks to the vaccines. We’ve made incredible progress over these past nine months but we have to keep going”. It is important that this COVID-19 vaccine and testing mandate is already facing opposition and legal challenges from 24 attorney generals.