President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon that a mandate to require all federal employees to be vaccinated is now “under consideration.”
Sources familiar with the discussion told ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Cecilia Vega that the president is awaiting the outcome of a policy review, but that likely Thursday, he will announce that federal employees will be required to be vaccinated or else they must abide by “stringent COVID-19 protocols like mandatory mask wearing — even in communities not with high or substantial spread — and regular testing.”
This comes one day after the Department of Veterans Affairs moved to require all of its health workers get a COVID-19 vaccine and within hours of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited new science on the transmissibility of the delta variant and reversed its mask guidance.
With 2.1 million workers, the federal government is the nation’s largest employer and this would be the largest vaccine mandate by a single employer.
MORE: CDC backtracks on masks guidance for vaccinated people, schools
“It’s under consideration right now,” Biden said of a vaccine mandate for federal workers Tuesday afternoon. “But if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were.”
