OSHA Issues Vaccine Mandate for Businesses with 100 or More Employees

A new OSHA rule will require all employees of businesses with 100 or more workers to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing.

The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a new rule requiring COVID-19 vaccinations for companies with 100 or more employees.

The new rule is expected to cover about 84 million workers and require all employees to be vaccinated or get tested weekly.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has also issued a rule requiring healthcare workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to be fully vaccinated. The rule will cover 17 million workers at approximately 76,000 healthcare facilities.

The deadline for compliance with the newly issued rules is January 4, 2022.

Employers will not be required to pay for testing of unvaccinated workers, and unvaccinated workers will also be required to wear masks on the job.

Healthcare workers covered by the CMS rule will not have a testing option.

“For our country, the choice is simple—get more people vaccinated or prolong this pandemic and its impact on our country,” said President Joe Biden in a White House statement. “The virus will not go away by itself, or because we wish it away – we have to act.”

According to the Biden Administration, vaccine mandates have reduced the number of unvaccinated Americans over the age of 12 from approximately 100 million in late July to about 60 million as of November.