By Arjun Walia | The Pulse
President Joe Biden is expected to announce this Thursday that all federal employees and contractors will need to be vaccinated against COVID. If they refuse to do so, they will be required to submit to regular testing and mitigation requirements.
CNN explains,
The announcement will come in remarks where Biden is also expected to lay out a series of new steps, including incentives, in an attempt to spur new vaccinations as the Delta variant spreads rapidly throughout the country. It will also follow the decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs to require its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated over the course of the next two months.
In recent weeks, Justice Department officials have been weighing requests from private businesses and federal agencies seeking legal backing for policies aimed at encouraging vaccinations, according to people briefed on the matter.
COVID vaccine mandates are on their way across the globe, despite a strong opposition. Some who oppose vaccine mandates are the most renowned scientists and doctors all across the globe, and up until now their perspectives have been met with ridicule, censorship, and “fact-checking.”
Perhaps more concerning is the fact that much of the cultural sentiment being built, primarily a result of media coverage, is deeply dividing the vaccinated and unvaccinated in countries around the world. The unvaccinated for being dehumanized in some cases, and much of the pandemic is now being blamed on them by government and health authorities.
We seem to be moving towards a society where life will be completely different for those who are unvaccinated, and society, as well as mainstream media, continue to fail at having balanced discussions around this topic in an effort to unite people and built empathy.
Typically what we’ve been seeing is only one perspective presented, while any other perspectives or evidence is ridiculed or labelled as “anti-vax” or “conspiracy”.
Check out our breakdown of this story with our resident legal expert David Helfrich, J.D. here.
This article (Biden Set To Announce Mandatory Vaccine Requirements For All Federal Employees) was originally published on The Pulse and is published under a Creative Commons license.