The Department of Health and Human Services will require its healthcare workforce, roughly 25,000 employees, to get the COVID-19 vaccine, Secretary Xavier Becerra announced on Thursday.
“Our No. 1 goal is the health and safety of the American public, including our federal workforce, and vaccines are the best tool we have to protect people from COVID-19, prevent the spread of the delta variant, and save lives,” Becerra said.
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HHS is now the third federal department to mandate vaccinations for some employees after the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The HHS mandate will apply to all employees of the Indian Health Service and National Institutes of Health, including contractors, trainees, and volunteers, whose jobs require them to be in contact with patients at a medical center or a clinical research facility.
“As President Biden has said, we are looking at every way we can to increase vaccinations to keep more people safe, and requiring our HHS healthcare workforce to get vaccinated will protect our federal workers, as well as the patients and people they serve,” Becerra said.
Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has also mandated the COVID-19 vaccines for employees of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, an elite team of 6,000 public health experts who respond to national health crises.
The Biden administration has issued a flurry of mandates in recent weeks over concerns that not enough people have gotten the vaccine to adequately prevent new, more virulent strains from developing. The delta variant, which now accounts for more than 94% of COVID-19 infections in the United States, has primarily affected unvaccinated people who are more susceptible to severe illness requiring hospitalization.
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Hospitals in certain pockets of the U.S. with especially thin vaccination coverage are straining to care for the deluge of new patients. Southern states, such as Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri, have reached hospitalization levels not seen since the winter. In Texas, for instance, hospitalizations have risen by about 112% over the past two weeks, while Florida has recorded a 57% increase, according to New York Times tracking. In Florida, meanwhile, hospitalizations have surpassed previous highs, with more than 14,000 COVID-19 patients being treated for COVID-19. The previous high was recorded last summer, with about 12,000 patients hospitalized for COVID-19.
Several of those states have vaccinated less than 50% of their populations. Overall, more than 71% of U.S. adults have received at least one shot, and 61% have been fully vaccinated.
