The White House released a report Thursday morning showing the effect recent vaccine requirements have had on the country’s vaccination rate as a whole. According to the latest numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just under 78 percent of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine. Among the findings in the White House report, vaccine requirements have increased vaccination rates by 20+ percentage points in many organizations and helped cut the rate of unvaccinated Americans by one-third since late July.
“As this report demonstrates, it is clear that vaccination requirements result in millions more people getting vaccinated,” the White House said. “Without vaccination requirements, we face endless months of chaos in our hospitals, further detrimental impacts on our economy, and anxiety in our schools. With them, we will accelerate our path out of the pandemic.”
The report also discusses the economic impact of increased vaccinations.
“An economic analysis by Goldman Sachs found that ‘an increase in vaccination and almost full vaccination at workplaces should encourage many of the 5 million workers that have left the labor force since the start of the pandemic to return’,” the report said. “Small business employee hours grew faster and stayed higher during the rise of the Delta variant in the states that have higher working-age vaccination rates, versus states with lower vaccination rates.”
The White House report was released as President Joe Biden was getting ready to make a trip to Chicago Thursday. The video above shows clips from the trip. There, he visited a suburban construction site run by a large building firm that is set to announce a new vaccinate-or-test requirement for its workforce. The president also met with United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. United has already successfully implemented a vaccine requirement.
“So, today I’m calling on more employers to act,” President Biden said. “My message is require your employees to get vaccinated.”
The aforementioned vaccine requirements come weeks before a new Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule is set to take place. The rule requires all employers with more than 100 employees to require that their staffs be vaccinated or face weekly testing.”This is within the purview of the Labor Department,” Biden said.
The White House has faced pushback from critics over the vaccine requirements. The critics call the requirements government overreach that takes away people’s rights to make their own medical decisions.
