Facebook, Google Mandates Vaccines for Employees Returning to Offices

Google and Facebook have both announced that all employees returning to company offices must be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

NBC News reports that Google and Facebook have both stated that all employees returning to company offices will need to be fully vaccinated as fears around a delta variant of the coronavirus continue to rise amongst the Silicon Valley elite.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a memo to employees this week: “Anyone coming to work on our campuses will need to be vaccinated. We’re rolling this policy out in the U.S. in the coming weeks and will expand to other regions in the coming months. Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead.”

Just a few short hours after Google’s announcement, Facebook enacted a similar policy. Lori Goler, Facebook’s vice president of people, told employees: “As our offices reopen, we will be requiring anyone coming to work at any of our US campuses to be vaccinated. How we implement this policy will depend on local conditions and regulations. We will have a process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons and will be evaluating our approach in other regions as the situation evolves. We continue to work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”

Pichai also said that Google will be extending its work-from-home policy for all of its offices until October 18. Initially, the company planned to reopen offices for employees in mid-September. Pichai said in the memo that if Google plans to make major changes to its plans in the future, it will notify employees at least 30 days before its offices are fully reopened.

Some Google employees were extremely positive about the decision to enact vaccine mandates, with one engineer speaking anonymously stating: “Definitely the right thing to do.” Other employees noted that pushing the return date back further would also be helpful for employees attempting to plan their lives in the coming months as they attempt to organize child care or move back tp lances near the Google offices.

Another anonymous Google employee stated: “I think logistically for employees, it would have been easier to just push to January. I suspect they’ll end up doing that anyway.”

In December 2020, Facebook announced that employees would not need to be vaccinated. As Breitbart News reported at the time, “During a recent company meeting, Zuckerberg confirmed that Facebook’s staff of more than 50,000 employees will not be required to receive the vaccine.” Mark Zuckerberg himself expressed concern about the vaccines in a video call captured by Project Veritas. “I share some caution on this, because we just don’t know the long-term side effects of basically modifying people’s DNA and RNA,” said Zuckerberg in the clip.

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