President Biden's Vaccine Mandate Plan

Vanessa Ramirez · Vaccine

By: Vanessa Ramirez, Jamiya Coleman, Shakeera Hayward, and Taylor Reedy

    In an effort to get the raging pandemic under control, President Joe Biden released a new mandate that implements six main components. With many different perspectives on the plan, it calls into question on how the people, who are directly affected by this plan, feel.

    The plan's components include vaccinating the unvaccinated, furthering protection for the vaccinated, keeping schools safely open, increasing testing and requiring masking, protecting our economic recovery, and improving care for those with COVID-19.

    In addition, the plan requires vaccinations for all federal workers and for millions of contractors that do business with the Federal Government, along with requiring ​​COVID-19 vaccinations for over 17 million health care workers at Medicare and Medicaid participating hospitals and other health care settings. 

Jasmine Griggs working in her office.

 Jasmine Griggs, a COVID-19 Healthcare Facility Case Investigator at Coastal Health District under Georgia Department of Public Health, feels it doesn't affect her.

    “My job has not released any kind of statement on whether it’s going to affect us or not,” Griggs said. "I do feel like the mandate is necessary in areas where you are working with sick individuals or vulnerable populations such as a hospital or a long-term care facility.”

    The mandate applies to nursing home staff, hospital staff, individuals providing services under arrangements

volunteers, and staff who are not involved in direct patient, resident, or client care.

    The requirements that Biden came up with will apply to about 50,000 providers and covers a majority, if not all, of health care workers across the country. This mandate is in place to assure and soothe the minds of patients so they know those caring for them will be vaccinated.

    While some businesses are less lenient with adopting the mandate, others are taking it seriously … starting with things as simple as temperature checks.

Georgia Southern University Health Center.

  “We do that every day. Every day,” Tina Lee, a certified Pharmacy Technician at Georgia Southern University health center, said when asked about temperature checks. “There’s questions we have to ask or are being asked and we have to answer to. If you come in late, you still have to be screened.”

     As new plans are implemented in an effort to slow the spread of the virus, a new normal is developing.

 "Unless some serious measures are taken such as enforcing quarantine, mandating masks everywhere, unless we start taking some really serious steps, I think this could be a new sense of normal," Jasmine Griggs said.

Pfzier Vaccine.