Skip to main content
International

COVID mandates: Military requires vaccine, Amazon requires masks, Canada requires tourists be vaccinated

Share

The Pentagon will require members of the military to get vaccinated by September 15, 2021. The news came Monday as Amazon initiates a mask mandate, and Canada opens its border to vaccinated United States citizens.

The video above shows Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby discussing the new military requirement.

According to a memo obtained by The Associated Press, the deadline could be moved up if the Pfizer vaccine receives full FDA approval or if infection rates continue to rise. The memo was expected to go out by the end of the day Monday.

“To defend this Nation, we need a healthy and ready force,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in the memo.

The decision is part of President Joe Biden’s plan to get more federal workers vaccinated.

The news of the military vaccine requirement comes as Amazon’s 900,000 U.S. warehouse workers are required to wear masks indoors now. This, regardless of vaccination status.

Amazon announced the mask mandate Friday. Up until that point, the company had only been requiring unvaccinated workers to wear masks.

Amazon joins Walmart and Target on the list of retailers who have a mandate in place for its workers. While Amazon hasn’t instituted a vaccine requirement for its employees, other companies have. Disney and Walmart announced vaccine mandates for white-collar workers inside offices. Meanwhile, Microsoft, Google and Facebook said they will require proof of vaccination for employees and visitors to their U.S. offices.

In addition, Tyson Foods announced last week it will require all U.S. employees to get vaccinated by November.

Also Monday, Canada lifted restrictions on Americans crossing the border to visit. Canadian officials announced the lifting of restrictions last month. The rest of the world can enter Canada Sept. 7, 2921.

U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents must be both fully vaccinated and test negative for COVID-19 within three days to legally cross into Canada. Travelers also must fill out an application on the arriveCAN app before crossing.

The Canada Border Services Agency won’t say how many people they expect to enter Canada for the reopening.

Tags:

John Kirby, Pentagon Spokesman: “We’re seeing an uptick in cases, uptick in hospitalizations across the force as we are in the country, and the Delta variant is a factor in that. So we’re going to watch it closely. And as the secretary told the force today, if he needs to move, act sooner than this timeline, then he’ll do that.”

“You can consider this memo today as what we would call in the military, a warning order, a warning order to the force that this is coming and we want you to be ready for it as well. And obviously, we’d prefer that in that that that you get the vaccine now and not wait for the mandate.”

“We are going to be developing policies to comply with the president’s direction that the unvaccinated will have to be subjected to certain requirements and restrictions. I don’t have the details for all that today. We’re working hard on what will be a policy directive to come in the coming days that will make it clear what those requirements and restrictions are and how they apply to everybody in the duty workforce, including uniformed personnel.”