Most employers know they can place a COVID vaccine mandate on their team.
In early September, President Biden announced he was taking steps to get more Americans vaccinated and turn the tide on COVID-19.
On November 4, the administration rolled out two of those steps — two different vaccine rules covering more than 100 million workers.
The first rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, covers companies with 100 or more employees. Companies must ensure that their workers are either fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4, 2022 or that they test negative for COVID-19 at least once a week. The rule does not require employers to pay for or provide testing to workers who decline the vaccine.
A second rule issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services requires some 17 million health care workers to be vaccinated by the same deadline, Jan. 4, but with no option for weekly testing in lieu of vaccination. The rule covers all employees — clinical and non-clinical — at about 76,000 health care facilities that receive federal funding from Medicare or Medicaid.
Employers must offer paid time off to those employees getting vaccinated or for vaccination recovery.
For those companies that don’t comply, there will be a $13,653 per violation fine. That’s if they don’t require and mandate employee vaccinations or if they don’t allow employees to take time off to recover.
The Vaccination Policies fact sheet, can be read in full here. President Biden ordered it as a public health response to contain the Delta variant of the virus, which is currently seen as the predominant, highly contagious variant in the United States. The full COVID action plan can be found here.
So far in the U.S., 178.7 million individuals have been fully vaccinated. Of those individuals, 1.78 million have received a third booster shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How TotalWellness is Helping During the Pandemic
As a corporate wellness company, our focus is on keeping the workforce healthy in communities across the United States. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve brainstormed and gathered resources to do what we can to help stop the spread of the virus.
Here’s how we are helping others get through the pandemic:
- Free resources - Our blog and downloadable resources are free to you. Each week, we update new content based on wellness trends, HR happenings, and informative articles that every workplace can benefit from in a big way.
- COVID testing - TotalWellness is proud to offer nationwide testing for COVID-19. Whether your company is currently open, or you are in the planning stages to re-open, we can provide on-site nurses to test employees and to help ensure a safe workplace. We also offer OTC test options.
- Corporate flu shots - With the ongoing pandemic, employers don’t also want to have to worry about flu season, too. We take care of a flu shot clinic for you to keep your staff safe from the flu — inside and outside the office.
- COVID vaccines for Omaha - Vaccines are a critical tool as we work together to end the COVID-19 pandemic. TotalWellness has been working with our local health department to provide COVID-19 vaccinations to the Omaha community and local employer groups. Our goal is to provide on-site COVID-19 shot clinics for companies nationwide, but right now the vaccine distribution is owned by the states and local health departments.
As always, we’re thankful to serve our loyal clients, regular readers, and the nationwide business community. Thank you for your continued support and ongoing work in keeping the virus out of your office by using our services. Stay well!
Updated on November 4, 2021, for the most up-to-date information.
