BREAKING: Biden Administration Will Reportedly Require Large Companies To Have Employees Be Vaccinated or Tested Weekly

The Biden administration will require companies with 100 employees or more to require their workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or be tested on a weekly basis for the disease, The Wall Street Journal and CNN are reporting.

President Joe Biden is expected to announce the measure in a speech on Thursday. The Journal reports that in the weeks ahead, the Department of Labor “plans to issue an emergency temporary standard implementing the new requirement, which will cover 80 million private-sector workers, officials said.”

Those establishments that fail to complain may face fines of up to $14,000 per violation, said the sources.

Employers will also be required to give paid time off to workers who must take time to get vaccinated or experience any side effects from the vaccine.

On Thursday, Biden will deliver a speech in which he will roll out a six-pronged plan for containing the pandemic.

The administration’s measure comes as just over half of Americans have been fully vaccinated. Hesitancy and outright hostility to the vaccine in many parts of the country remain substantial hurdles in stopping the spread of Covid-19. As states have relaxed Covid restrictions, some of them are seeing increases in cases of Covid, as well as hospitalizations and deaths due to the disease. The country is averaging nearly 1,500 deaths from the virus for the first time since March, when the vaccine was not yet widely available to most Americans.

According to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, the White House estimates that the directive will impact up to 80 million American workers.

Some details of the plan remain unclear, such as whether companies will be required to pay for weekly Covid testing, or if the tests would be subsidized in some way by the federal government.

Watch above via CNN.