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HHS becomes third federal department to mandate COVID-19 shots for employees - Stone - 08-17-2021
HHS becomes third federal department to mandate COVID-19 shots for employees
Public-facing healthcare workers with the Department of Health and Human Services must now get the experimental vaccine as a condition of employment.
Mon Aug 16, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Under the leadership of radical pro-abortion Secretary Xavier Becerra, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) became the third federal department to mandate experimental COVID-19 shots for its public-facing employees.
“Our number one goal is the health and safety of the American public, including our federal workforce, and the vaccines are the best tool we have to protect people from Covid-19, prevent the spread of the Delta variant and save lives,” Becerra said in a statement, according to Politico.
The new policy, announced Thursday, will force all healthcare workers to get the shots if their role brings them into direct contact with the public.
The mandate will impact roughly one-third of all HHS employees, or about 25,000 people. The requirement includes employees of the Indian Health Service, the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), of which COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci is a part.
The move comes after the Biden administration issued a mandate requiring healthcare workers employed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to get the jab late last month, followed by an edict from the Department of Defense compelling active duty members of the military to get the experimental drug.
Federal employees in other departments who are not subject to an outright mandate are nonetheless required to declare their vaccination status and abide by a strict set of restrictive impositions should they decline the shot.
According to a July 29 White House statement, “every federal government employee and onsite contractor will be asked to attest to their vaccination status. Anyone who does not attest to being fully vaccinated will be required to wear a mask on the job no matter their geographic location, physically distance from all other employees and visitors, comply with a weekly or twice weekly screening testing requirement, and be subject to restrictions on official travel.”
The new rules forcing attestation of vaccination and extra requirements for the unvaccinated currently affect roughly four million Americans employed by the federal government.
According to Politico, the mandate for HHS employees comes amid concern about the “highly-contagious Delta variant,” which has brought case counts up to a daily average in excess of 100,000, the highest rate since the winter.
Becerra took the opportunity to encourage more Americans to get the experimental COVID-19 shot, even amid continuous reports of breakthrough COVID and indications that the Delta variant, while more contagious, is less lethal than the original Wuhan version of the virus.
“As President Biden has said, we have to do all we can to increase vaccinations to keep more people safe,” Becerra argued, adding that “Instructing our HHS health care workforce to get vaccinated will protect our federal workers and the patients and people they serve.”
The move also comes on the heels of a reversal from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) regarding face masks. After initially assuring Americans that if they had gotten the COVID-19 shot they could toss their face masks, the CDC now recommends that fully vaccinated Americans once again mask up in public.
The federal mandates are mirrored by similar requirements put into place by state and local governments, especially in the coastal states. California and New York have begun forcing state employees and health care professionals to take the shot, be subject to regular testing, or lose their jobs.
New York City has begun forcing its residents to show proof of having gotten at least one shot to access many indoor public venues. [Interesting that proof of only one shot is required for access as most 'authorities' argue that one can't be considered 'protected' until two weeks after second shot. So its about the signaling of compliance rather than immunity to only require proof of one injection. - The Catacombs.]
In California, San Francisco will require all city employees to get the jab, and recently became the first major city in the U.S. to require proof of full vaccination in order to gain access to most indoor public places and events.
The Los Angeles City Council has voted to impose a similar mandate on Angelinos, requiring proof of vaccination to enter indoor public places, but to date no such mandate has been enacted.