President Joe Biden urged schools and businesses on Monday to instate vaccine mandates in light of the FDA’s first full COVID-19 vaccine approval.
The FDA approved Pfizer’s vaccine for people 16 and older. The shot was previously allowed to be administered under an emergency use authorization.
The president is now asking employers to require vaccination. “I’m calling on more companies in the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people,” he said. “If you’re a business leader, a nonprofit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that — require it. It only makes sense to require a vaccine to stop the spread of Covid-19. If you’re one of the millions of Americans who said that they will not get the shot until it has full and final approval of FDA: It has now happened. The moment you’ve been waiting for is here.”
With the Delta variant causing an increase in hospitalizations, administration officials are pushing for more inoculations.
Earlier this month, Biden implemented a vaccine mandate for federal workers.
Over 170 million Americans are fully vaccinated. And 30 million have gotten at least one dose.
According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly 30 percent of vaccine-hesitant Americans would agree to get the vaccine now that it has received full approval from the FDA.
