President Biden has been pushing for more agencies and companies to enforce similar rules as the Delta variant fuels a wave of new cases.
The Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday said it would require more than 25,000 health workers — including contractors and volunteers — to receive coronavirus vaccines, becoming the latest federal agency to implement such a mandate. Members of the Indian Health Service and the National Institutes of Health who work in federally run facilities and deal with patients, and the U.S. Public Health Service, a commissioned corps of medical officers led by the surgeon general, are subject to the requirement, the department said. Those health workers are already required to receive flu vaccines and other inoculations. “We are looking at every way we can to increase vaccinations to keep more people safe,” Xavier Becerra, the health and human services secretary, said in a statement.
