President Joe Biden is expected to announce Thursday that all federal employees and contractors will be required to receive a coronavirus vaccine, CNN reports. Should the federal employees not receive the preventative, they will be required to wear masks and undergo regular testing. The deadline for employees and contractors’ vaccination attestations is still being finalized. One large exception to Biden’s order will be military personnel, who will not be required to be vaccinated, according to CNN. The president’s announcement will come within days of California, New York City, and the Veteran’s Affairs Department announcing similar mandates for employees. The president said Tuesday, “We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated, and they’re sowing enormous confusion. And the more we’ve learned about this virus and the delta variant, the more we have to be worried and concerned. There’s only one thing we know for sure: If those other people got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world.” Over the past month, COVID-19’s more contagious delta variant has accelerated transmission among those who have not been inoculated, creating what CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky described as “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
