President Joe Biden will order federal government employees on Thursday to get the vaccine or submit themselves to regular testing, according to reports.
The president said Tuesday his administration was considering a vaccine mandate for federal employees, but the White House appears willing to leave options open for people who do not want the vaccine.
The White House is growing increasingly frustrated with unvaccinated Americans, as Biden lashed out Tuesday.
“We have a pandemic, because of the unvaccinated and they’re sowing enormous confusion,” he said to reporters, adding, “If those other 100 million got vaccinated, we’d be in a very different world.”
The past 48 hours demonstrate that Biden and the White House remain unable to respond quickly to the spike of cases blamed on the spread of the delta variant of the virus.
Biden did not publicly address the Centers for Disease Control’s decision on Tuesday to require some Americans to wear masks again indoors, even if they are fully vaccinated.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was unable to explain details surrounding reports of the CDC’s updated guidance on Tuesday.
The Biden team was mostly silent Wednesday, allowing Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky to conduct interviews on television to detail the updated guidance.
The president will travel to Pennsylvania on Wednesday for a speech about buying American products, punting a detailed speech on his handling of the coronavirus until Thursday.