Google and Facebook are introducing mandatory vaccination for employees in the United States
The vaccination numbers in the USA are stagnating, the number of infections is rising steadily again: Google and Facebook are the first large tech companies in Silicon Valley to make vaccination of their employees compulsory before they return to the office. Are others following the example?
Because of the rapid spread of the Delta variant in the USA, Google and Facebook are tightening the corona rules for their employees. The employees of the two Internet giants in the United States must be vaccinated against the coronavirus before returning to the offices, as both companies announced independently on Wednesday (local time).
Google boss Sundar Pichai said the regulation would initially affect the United States, but would also apply to other regions in the coming months as soon as vaccinations are widely available there. The advance of the two tech giants is putting other large companies under pressure to follow suit, media reports said.
Google is aware that many employees are worried about returning to the office because of the increasing infections from the Delta variant. “Getting vaccinated is one of the most important measures to keep us and our communities healthy in the coming months,” Pichai said in a press release.
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Postponed return to offices
Google is also postponing the planned major return to the offices on October 18. He hoped to be able to reassure the employees with these steps, wrote Pichai. Apple, on the other hand, had already postponed the return to the offices last week by initially one month, now to October. However, the company has not yet announced any mandatory vaccination.
On Facebook, HR manager Lori Goler announced that the implementation of mandatory vaccinations for employees in the US offices would depend on “local conditions and regulations”. “We will also have a procedure for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons,” she added. The procedure with a view to locations outside the USA will be examined further. The safety and health of employees have priority in the return concepts.
The vaccination campaign in the USA is now on the point – and that despite an abundance of vaccines and many vaccination incentives. For this reason, the states of New York and California have already announced an obligation for employees to either be vaccinated or to be tested regularly.
Federal government is examining compulsory vaccination
According to President Joe Biden, the US federal government is also examining compulsory vaccinations for its two million employees. According to the regulation under consideration, those who do not want to be vaccinated will have to undergo regular corona tests. However, Biden has clearly rejected the idea of ​​a nationwide vaccination requirement.
So far, a good 49 percent of the population of around 330 million people in the United States has been fully vaccinated. That is significantly less than the government had targeted for this point in time. Most recently, the number of daily new corona infections rose again to around 60,000 on average because of the particularly contagious Delta variant.
Almost 69,000 new infections were reported on Wednesday, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore on Thursday morning (CEST). That is almost 17,000 more than a week ago. The number of deaths reported within one day with a confirmed corona infection rose from 333 to 513 in a weekly comparison.
The previous highs were recorded on January 2 with 300,462 new infections and on January 12 with 4,460 deaths. According to estimates by the health authority CDC, more than 83 percent of all infections recorded in the country can be traced back to the particularly contagious Delta variant. dpa
